04:07
Rodrigo†
8.6K
Front of Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. In 1548, rioting Huguenots damaged features of the cathedral, considering them idolatrous. During the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV , the cathedral …More
Front of Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris.

In 1548, rioting Huguenots damaged features of the cathedral, considering them idolatrous. During the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV
, the cathedral underwent major alterations as part of an ongoing attempt to modernize cathedrals throughout Europe. A colossal statue of St Christopher, standing against a pillar near the western entrance and dating from 1413, was destroyed in 1786. Tombs and stained glass windows were destroyed. The north and south rose windows were spared this fate, however.

In 1793, during the French Revolution, the cathedral was rededicated to the Cult of Reason, and then to the Cult of the Supreme Being. During this time, many of the treasures of the cathedral were either destroyed or plundered. The statues of biblical kings of Judah (erroneously thought to be kings of France) were beheaded. Many of the heads were found during a 1977 excavation nearby and are on display at the Musée de Cluny. For a time, Lady Liberty
replaced the Virgin Mary on several altars. The cathedral's great bells managed to avoid being melted down. The cathedral came to be used as a warehouse for the storage of food.

A restoration program was initiated in 1845, overseen by architects Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. The restoration lasted twenty five years and included the construction of a flèche (a type of spire) as well as the addition of the chimeras on the Galerie des Chimères. Viollet le Duc always signed his work with a bat, the wing structure of which most resembles the Gothic vault (see Château de Roquetaillade
).

In 1871, during the period of the Paris Commune
, the cathedral was nearly set alight: some records suggest that the rebels even went so far as to set fire to a mound of chairs within the building. Whether that was so or not, the cathedral survived the Commune period essentially unscathed.

In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, it was feared that German
bombers could destroy the windows; as a result, on 11 September 1939, they were removed, and then restored at the end of the war.

In 1991, a major program of maintenance and restoration was initiated, which was intended to last ten years, but is still in progress as of 2009, the cleaning and restoration of old sculptures being an exceedingly delicate matter.