IN LIGHT OF RECENT EVENTS I THOUGHT I'D DO A SPECIAL ONE-OFF THREAD OMG The Saint-Étienne Just over two thousand years ago, the areas that encompass the modern day countries of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and a small portion of Germany west of the River Rhine were inhabited by Celtic tribes. Scotland, Wales, and England were known to the Roman Republic as 'Britannia', and the rest (besides Ireland) were known to them as 'Gaul'. In 52 BC, Julius Caesar annexed Gaul for the Republic as the Province of Gallia. Sometime during the first century, a city called Lutetia was founded in the area that the Parisii tribe lived in. The Romans sought to develop the area and turn the Gauls into Romans, and as part of that development, on the Ile de la Cite (an island in the middle of the River Seine) they constructed the 'Piller des Nautes'; this was a limestone column that was elaborately decorated in honour of the Roman God of thunder, Jupiter. For some reason, they broke it in half during the 100s and used one half of it to reinforce the island's riverbank walls. By 212 AD, everyone within Gallia was now recognised as a citizen of Rome and spoke Latin. The Roman Empire's rule was not to last, however. Britannia was being raided by Germanic tribes from North Germany and the modern day Netherlands (the Anglos, Saxons and Jutes), and Gallia was being raided by a different Germanic tribe, called the Franks, who lived east of the Rhine. With their control weakening immensely, the Romans split Gallia into several rump states. The last of these rump states, the Domain of Soissons, was invaded by the Franks in 486 AD. Clovis Merovingian, a Catholic, succeeded to the throne of Soissons and was proclaimed 'King of the Franks', to much protest from other Frankish leaders, in 509 AD. He made the state religion of 'Francia' Catholicism and this caused most of the Franks to become Catholic. Clovis died in 511 AD and four of his sons took the crown(s). One of these sons, King Childebert I, built the Church of Saint-Étienne on top of the Piller des Neutes in 528 AD. The Carolingians came to power during the seventh century and eventually united France and Germany into one nation under the rule of Charlemagne in 800 AD. The Carolingian Empire collapsed upon Charlemagne's death 814 AD. Despite the endless territorial disputes between the German states and France that would eventually help cause World War I 1,000 years later, they also renovated the Church of Saint-Étienne into the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne in 857. However, in 1160, the Bishop of Paris noticed that the Saint-Étienne was unfit for the growing population of the city, and petitioned King Louis VII, of the House Capet, to build a new cathedral in a Gothic architectural style. Construction on the Notre-Dame began in 1163.
Rise of the Notre-Dame Despite the cathedral being... vastly incomplete, it was witness to its first major historical event in 1185! The Third Crusade was called from within its walls. The Third Crusade was called with the goal of reclaiming Jerusalem for the Christian world. It ended in 1192. Jerusalem was not reclaimed, but the Crusaders did manage to nab Cyprus despite... Cyprus not being the goal at all. King Louis IX placed the Crown of Thorns, supposedly the same that Jesus Christ wore during his death, inside the cathedral in 1231 - it also holds what is supposedly a piece of the cross itself. The cathedral was still incomplete, and was having its plans constantly changed as the Gothic style fell out of favour. King Philip IV opened the first Estates General, the French response to the English Parliament (it was quite ineffective), inside the Notre-Dame in 1302. It was still incomplete. It was only finished forty-three years later, in 1345, after spending almost two centuries under construction. During this time, the Kingdoms of England and France were in the middle of the Hundred Years' War, a series of wars over the same thing: France wanted to rule England, England wanted to rule France. They fought eachother. After the death of King Charles VI of France (House Valois), King Henry VI of England (House Lancaster) - a literal one year old - inherited the Kingdom of France in 1422. He was crowned inside the Notre Dame in 1431, aged ten, because apparently ten year olds are suitable Heads of State. That ten year old went on to become mentally unstable and the... 'real' France, ruled by his uncle, King Charles VII, successfully took English-ruled land. By 1453, England only owned Calais instead of the huge swathes of France, like Normandy and Paris, it had owned when he came to the throne. Henry was deposed by King Edward IV in 1461 and England descended into decades of civil war, ending the Hundred Years' War.
Fall of the Notre-Dame During the Renaissance Era (1300s-1600s), the Gothic style of architecture that the Notre-Dame was constructed in came to be considered ugly. The walls and pillars were covered in tapestries. On top of that, during the 1500s, the reformation was sweeping across Europe - France was no exception. The Protestants deemed the Notre Dame's decor to be too Catholic and hated the worship of idols, so they smashed some statues. King Louis XIV (reigned from 1643 - 1715) ordered that the Notre-Dame be renovated: the choir was replaced with marble and many of the stained glass windows were removed. Its spire was removed after being damaged by wind. The Seven Years' War, the first global war, arrived in 1754. It lasted until 1763. France lost to the English-dominated Kingdom of Great Britain, who pretty much became the first superpower. France lost a lot of territory and almost went bankrupt. They didn't like this. So, when the American Revolution (1775 - 1785) presented itself and there was an opportunity to get back at the English, the French monarchy took it. The French monarchy was still bankrupt and this made literally everything worse. The French Revolution broke out in 1789. People were angry at the political and noble class and sought to rid themselves of them and the monarchy. During the Revolution, the Cult of Reason, who sought to make atheism France's state religion, established their headquarters in the Notre Dame. The Cult of the Supreme Being, who believed that God created everything but literally doesn't care about any of that everything and thus Catholicism and atheism were silly, took it over. Neither of these cults really bothered to protect much inside the Notre Dame, and so a bunch of stuff got stolen. The Cult of Reason also thought that some statues of the biblical kings were French Kings, so they decapitated the statues. Most of the other statues were replaced by one of the Goddess of Liberty. Other than that, the cathedral became a glorified food warehouse. However, in 1801, big boy Napoleon Bonaparte returned the cathedral to the Roman Catholic church, and in 1804, he was crowned Emperor of France by the Pope inside of it. Napoleon went on to invade most of Europe and introduced most of Europe's modern legal and infrastructure systems, and decided that imperial measurements were stupid and moved everyone onto metric units. Since metric is a French unit, the United Kingdom refused to use them. Ever. Then they realised that if Napoleon is successful, the UK might have a revolution too. Then they realised that France was now the dominant European power, and the UK always thought that nobody should control Europe. And, like, ew, France. So, in 1814, they teamed up with the Kingdom of Prussia and defeated Napoleon in a war and restored the French monarchy.
Return of the Notre Dame Despite Napoleon's love of the Notre Dame, it was still falling to pieces. A French Romantic movement writer, Victor Hugo, thought that the Notre Dame deserved more love. He published The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, a tragic story about a hunchback who lived in the cathedral and a gypsy girl called Esmerelda. As a result of the book's capture of hearts and minds across France and the entire world, King Louis Philippe I ordered that the Notre Dame be restored in 1844. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc became the architects of the restoration - they restored pieces of the cathedral based on original blueprints, or added new pieces in the spirit of the original Gothic style if they couldn't find any blueprints. Such additions included the recreation of the cathedral's spire, made taller and better-looking, and statues of mythical creatures that lined the Galerie des Chimères. In 1870, Prussia annexed Alsace-Lorraine, one of those disputed territories that Charlemagne caused. Emperor Napoleon III was captured by Prussian forces and the Third Republic of France was proclaimed at the city of Tours, because the Prussians were laying siege to Paris. Paris was protected by the National Guard, who were sympathetic to the radicalised working class, and they surrendered to Prussia. The Third Republic agreed to disarm the French Army at the request of Prussia, so the National Guard declared the city of Paris to be free of the rule of the Republic and proclaimed a socialist state. The French Army rolled in after a few months and took Paris back. During that time, the Notre Dame was going to be burned down by 'anti-clericals', but the locals told them to leave it alone. Prussia went on to form Germany. The Notre Dame, like every other cathedral in France, became state-owned, rather than church-owned, in 1905. Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who commanded a bunch of battles against England during the Hundred Years' War, before being burned to death on accusations of heresy, was beatified inside the Notre Dame in 1909. The Notre Dame watched over Paris during Nazi occupation from 1940-1944. Adolf Hitler ordered that the city be burned down, but the German general in control refused to carry out the order. Once the Nazis were driven out, the bell of the Notre Dame rang out across Paris and told everyone the Nazis were gone. It suffered some minor damage during the fighting. A special mass, attended by the leader of Free France and future President Charles De Gaulle, was held inside of it on August 26th to officially celebrate. It was cleaned of soot and grime in 1963. Now clean, it got to watch over the 1968 events, in which all of Paris almost descended into revolution... again... this time against de Gaulle and American influence... and Paris became a socialist anarchy... again. But that was it. It was never given the proper maintenance ever again. The French government realised about nine years ago "THE NOTRE DAME IS FALLING APART!" and ordered that it be fixed up.
The Burning of the Notre Dame On April 15th, 2019, the Notre Dame was set ablaze due to what was apparently an electrical fire in the construction work. The fire caused the collapse of Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's spire, as well as the roof. All of its relics and statues were saved, as were the organ and the stained glass windows. This was, however, incredibly lucky: had the fire continued for another 'thirty minutes', the entire thing would have completely collapsed. According to French President Emmanuel Macron, the cathedral will be completely fixed by 2024, new spire and everything included. The end.
