In 528 Childeric, Clovis son, built a church dedicated to Our Lady on the biggest of the islands on the Seine and the only ont to be inhabited at the time. It then fell into ruins and Maurice de Sully decided to replace it with a cathedral. The first stone was laid by pope Alexander III in 1163 and Notre-Dame was completed 170 years later.

Thanks to relentless requests from Victor Hugo, restoration work was started in 1845 by Viollet le Duc.

How wonderful and charming are the scenes of Paris. Above all the Paris of that time seen from the top of Notre-Dame towers at daybreak, when the summer morning was cool and the light glimmering. The sun was about to rise, Paris was waking up.

Victor Hugo - Notre Dame de Paris

« We climbed the spiral staircase. It was totally dark; the climb lasted and eternity. At last, we reached the open platform. Completely out of breath, my accomplice collapsed into the chair. Impatient, enraptured, I run beside the balustrade.

It was more beautiful that I had imagined! The dark, indefinable shapes were as black as night, the fog over Paris was milk white! Scarcely discernible, the Hotel-Dieu, the Tour Saint Jacques, the Quartier Latin, the Sorbonne, were luminous and somber shapes…

Paris was ageless, bodiless… Present and past, history and legend, intermingle. At the top of this cathedral, I expected to meet Quasimodo the bell-ringer around some corner, and later upon descending into the city, I would certainly pass Verlaine and François Villon, the Marquis de Sade, Gérard de Nerval, Restif de la Bretonne."

Brassai