Readers of Hugo’s Notre Dame will remember his description of the Archdeacon as he clung to the lead gutter of the tower: “Meanwhile he felt himself going bit by bit; his fingers slipped upon the gutter; he felt more and more the increasing weakness of his arms and the weight of his body; the piece of lead which supported him inclined more and more downwards. He saw beneath him, frightful to contemplate, the pointed roof of St. Jean-le-Rond, small as a card bent double. He looked, one after another, at the imperturbable sculptures of the tower—like him suspended over the precipice—but without terror for themselves or pity for him. All around him was stone,—before his eyes the gaping monsters; in the Parvis below, the pavement; above his head, Quasimodo weeping.”
“LE STRYGE,” ONE OF THE CHIMÈRAS OF NOTRE DAME, WITH THE TOWER OF ST. JACQUES.
(After Méryon’s Etching.
Insatiable vampire l’éternelle luxure,
Sur la grande cité convoite sa pâture.)
The Towers, though not of precisely the same size, appear to be so. The summit of the north tower is reached by an ascent of two hundred and ninety-seven steps. Each of the towers is pierced with coupled pointed openings and profusely enriched with mouldings and gargoyles. Both of them terminate with open parapets, the staircases ending in small turrets. The panorama of Paris from the top is magnificent, while the view of Notre Dame itself reveals to the full its structural beauty. Few sights are more impressive than that of the great roof ridge of the church, broken by the graceful modern flèche, and ending in the circular chevet. From this high place, likewise, one is able fully to appreciate the grand arrangement of flying buttresses, the forest of pinnacles, the host of gargoyles, statues, and other sculptured ornaments which adorn the structure. Of the famous peal of thirteen ancient bells which formerly occupied the belfries of the two towers, only one—le bourdon de Notre Dame—still remains. It has announced to Paris most of the great victories of the French army, and it still gives the signal to other bells to usher in the great festivals of the Church. Of the other bells existing here, the most interesting is one of Russian workmanship, which was brought from Sebastopol.
THE ROOF-RIDGE OF NOTRE DAME.
(From a drawing by Joseph Pennell, by permission of the “Pall Mall Magazine.”)
The Flèche, over the crossing, was built in 1859–60, the ancient one being destroyed in 1787 and replaced by a bulb-like structure which was irreverently compared to a pepper box. To this circumstance Victor Hugo alludes scornfully: “Un architecte de bon goût l’a amputé, et a cru qu’il suffisait de masquer la plaie avec ce large emplâtre de plomb, qui ressemble au couvercle d’une marmite.” In removing this atrocity Viollet-le-Duc was assuredly performing a necessary service. His elaborate though slender steeple is of oak covered with lead, and weighs 750,000 kilos. It is ornamented with numberless crockets and pierced with well-contrived openings. The base is led up to by tiers of statues placed on brackets in the angles formed by the junction of the roofs of the nave, transepts and choir. The ball below the cross encloses reputed fragments of the cross and the crown of thorns. There can be little doubt that Viollet-le-Duc, speaking generally, has constructed a flèche which would have commended itself to mediæval designers. It is interesting to note the slender character of the structures which in France rise above the crossings, as compared with the huge towers which occupy a like position in the English cathedrals of Lincoln, Canterbury and York, or with the comparatively substantial spires to be found at Salisbury, Norwich and Lichfield.