Notre-Dame took nearly two centuries to build, was nearly demolished after the Revolution, burned in 2019 and reopened in December 2024. Here's what you're looking at, and what to listen for when you stand in front of it.
In 1793 revolutionaries pulled down the 28 statues of kings on the facade, thinking they were kings of France; they were kings of Judah. Many heads were found in 1977, buried in a courtyard nearby, and are now in the Musée de Cluny.
By the 1830s the cathedral was in ruins. Victor Hugo's novel "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" (1831) made Parisians care again, and Viollet-le-Duc restored it, adding the spire and many of the gargoyles you see.
On 15 April 2019 a fire destroyed the roof and the spire. It took five years and about 2,000 craftspeople to rebuild them, using oak and techniques close to the medieval ones; the cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024.
Yes. It reopened on 7 December 2024, after five years of restoration following the 2019 fire. Entry to the cathedral is free.
Construction began in 1163 and was largely complete by the mid-14th century.
The spire that burned in 2019 was designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the 1850s and 1860s; it was rebuilt to the same design.