It was like stepping back into a medieval age and reliving the breathtaking awe Notre Dame cathedral would have inspired in the 14th century when the light from the rose windows threw a kaleidoscope of colours on its pale creamy walls before hundreds of years of liturgical smoke and city pollution blackened them.
This is how the church would have appeared on completion in 1345, towering over Paris, then a city of 200,000 people, from the Île de la Cité in the middle of the River Seine that bisects the French capital.
And the bells, the bells rang out: the Bourdon, cast in 1683, baptised Emmanuel by its patron Louis XIV and considered one of the most beautiful in Europe, sounded in F sharp as it had done for centuries.
Notre Dame was a monumental achievement in the 12th and 13th centuries. Its resurrection after the devastating fire that threatened to bring the entire edifice down, is a monumental achievement for the 21st.
Saturday’s official opening, described as a mark of “French pride” by President Emmanuel Macron, was as much a diplomatic as an ecclesiastic occasion.
It comes as Macron sits at the centre of a domestic political storm following the resignation of his prime minister and government of just three months. A vote of no confidence was passed last Wednesday with the support of the far right and hard left.
View image in fullscreen
Since Michel Barnier and his government resigned, Macron has held a series of emergency meetings with political leaders in an attempt to find a new prime minister to appoint a government including the left, centre and conservative right but excluding the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) and the far-right National Rally (RN), that would survive a new vote of no confidence. Recruiting the Socialist Party (PS) and Greens (EELV) to any new administration would spell the end of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition that won the most seats in the July snap general election.
The Élysée had invited 100 VIP guests including 50 heads of state. As well as US president-elect Donald Trump and current first lady Jill Biden, the Prince of Wales, Italian president Sergio Mattarella, Greek president Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the monarchs of Belgium, Spain and Monaco were expected, along with the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and the Emir of Qatar. The pope, however, was not present, having declined an invitation in favour of visiting Corsica this week.
Macron was due to address the VIPs on the square outside the cathedral, out of respect for France’s secular tradition separating state and church. Instead, the threat of gale-force winds – often deemed “acts of God” by insurance companies – forced everyone inside, including Macron and his speech.
View image in fullscreen
Standing outside the gutted cathedral on the night of 15 April 2019, Macron pledged the building would rise from the ashes in five years. With smoke still rising from the wounded edifice, its roof destroyed, its spire collapsed, bringing ancient stone with it, the promise seemed little more than wishful thinking – an unfeasible task, a promise made to a traumatised city, country and world, but one that was unlikely to be fulfilled.
That the cathedral has indeed risen phoenix-like in five years and eight months is the result of a herculean effort driven by the determination of the president, the support of a global community, a spirit of collaboration and cooperation and simple traditional craftsmanship.
View image in fullscreen
Over the past five years, the cathedral has been described as the “building site of the century”. Following the fire, French heritage officials and architects established a timetable for the restoration. Before repairs could even begin, the scaffolding around the spire at the time of the fire, melded together by the heat, had to be unpicked and removed, while the site and the area around it – contaminated with tiny particles of lead from the cathedral roof – needed to be cleaned. It would require 1,000 oak trees to recreate la forêt, the structure holding up the lead roof, which was named the forest because of the amount of wood involved, and to rebuild the spire. About 250 companies were recruited, along with 2,000 workers and artisans – carpenters carving beams and masons cutting stones to replace those damaged using traditional tools.
It has cost €700m, raised from the €850m donations, large and small, that poured in from across the world after the conflagration. The €150m that is left over will be used to carry out further “urgent exterior renovations” to the cathedral, according to Philippe Jost, who has overseen the reconstruction after Jean-Louis Georgelin, chosen by Macron to run the project, died in a climbing accident in August 2023.
To those who remember the pre-fire dark cathedral, the rebuilt monument is a surprise. Norman Foster, the British architect, described the reaction of visitors today, as the “shock of the new”.
View image in fullscreen
He told the BBC: “We take the patina of age as reflecting antiquity … we don’t think in the past that that was brightly coloured. It’s a paradox, because it’s bringing it back to its original roots.”
Notre-Dame de Paris, whose construction began in about 1163 and was completed in the middle of the 14th century, has been an icon of French religious and republican history. It received the crown of thorns – a relic believed to have been worn by Jesus – in 1239, became the Temple of Reason after the 1789 French Revolution and saw the crowning of Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor in 1804. Between 1845 and 1867 it underwent major restructuring under the direction of architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who added a spire to the medieval building and buried the rood screen under the floor of the nave. During the 1944 Liberation of Paris, the Magnificat – or Marie’s Hymn – was sung in the cathedral as it was on Saturday evening. The funerals of five French presidents, including Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, have been held here. As one of the city’s principal landmarks, the cathedral welcomed about 13 million visitors every year before the fire – a figure the church authorities expect to reach 15 million now.
While the VIP guests took refuge inside the cathedral from the storm, the clerics were more robust in maintaining the planned religious rite. Standing outside Notre Dame cathedral the archbishop of Paris called out “our lady, open your doors”; inside three knocks rang out.
Three times the archbishop, Laurent Ulrich, called out and knocked on the cathedral door: three times the cathedral choir responded with Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”
View image in fullscreen
After the third response, the doors opened to reveal the archbishop, carrying the crozier with which he had hammered on the door made out of a beam from la forêt that survived the 2019 fire.
skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Observed
Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers
after newsletter promotion
He stood under the church’s “portal of judgment” flanked by two deacons. It was the first time Ulrich had entered his seat, his cathedral, in an official religious capacity: the pope named him archbishop of Paris in April 2022, three years after the fire.
On entering Notre Dame, behind Macron and the first lady, Brigitte, and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, Ulrich did not bow to the altar, which has not been consecrated. That will happen on Sunday during the first mass.
There followed another long standing ovation for the Paris firefighters who put out the blaze five years ago and for Philippe Jost, who oversaw the restoration project after the death of General Georgelin.
Macron addressed those gathered.
“I stand before you before the liturgy to express the gratitude of the French nation … for all those who saved, helped and rebuilt Notre-Dame de Paris. Gratitude for all those present as we give Notre-Dame back to the Catholics, Paris, the French and the entire world,” he said.
“The bells of Notre-Dame ring again.” They have accompanied our history. We might never have heard their voice.”
He recalled: “The image of flames devouring the transept, the spire falling…the hours of combat against the fire….”
Macron praised the bravery of firefighters who stopped the flames reaching the bell towers which, if consumed, would have brought down the stone structure.
“We decided to rebuild Notre-Dame more beautiful than ever in five years. To make it possible there was an unusual fraternity from all continents, all religions all fortunes … we have rediscovered what great nations can do, realise the impossible.
“This cathedral is a happy metaphor of what nation is and what the world should be. The world finds the cathedral rebuilt and we must keep like a treasure the lesson of fragility, humility and willingess. Tonight we share the joy and the pride. Vive Notre-Dame de Paris, Vive la République, Vive la France.
The archbishop then proceeded with the religious ceremonial with the words: “Awake the organ. Let God’s praise be heard”.
The revival of the organ involved a dialogue between the archbishop and the instrument, built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in the 19th century. It survived the fire but its 8,000 pipes had to be dismantled, cleaned and reassembled after being contaminated with lead particles from the destroyed roof and spire, and water used to put out the blaze. The subsequent tuning, which took six months, was carried out at night when the hammering and sawing of the builders had stopped.
The assembly turned towards the statue of Notre-Dame de Paris. Located on the south-east pillar, this 14th-century Virgin and Child has been prayed to since the 1860s. During the fire, it narrowly escaped destruction: firefighters found at its feet a beam that had fallen from the roof frame and crashed right in front of it without touching it. It was returned to the cathedral on 15 November, during a torchlight procession of more than 3,000 people.
The service ended with the singing of the Te Deum, a song of praise that dates back to the fourth century and whose text is attributed to Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (339-397).
The inaugural mass on Sunday will be attended by the royals, heads of state and VIPs and in the presence of 170 bishops from France and elsewhere, as well as priests from the 106 Paris parishes. The central act of the mass will be the consecration of the new cathedral altar. It will be followed by a “fraternal buffet” to welcome some of the capital’s “most disadvantaged”.
A first mass open to the public will be held at 6.30pm on Sunday. Worshippers who wish to attend this and subsequent masses at the cathedral must reserve places. “We have a great thirst to welcome the whole world once again under the vaults of the cathedral,” the archbishop said.
∎