Notre-Dame Cathedral

In front of you stands the most famous cathedral in France. Before the details, look down: somewhere on the square, close to the façade, there is a small bronze star. This is the point zéro, the zero mile marker from which road distances from Paris are measured.

1Almost two centuries in the making

Work began in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully, on the site of earlier churches, and the bulk of the building was finished by the mid-fourteenth century. Ceremonies that shaped the nation took place here: in 1804, Napoleon crowned himself emperor in the presence of Pope Pius VII, a moment Jacques-Louis David captured in a vast canvas that now hangs in the Louvre.

2Saved by a novel

After the Revolution, the cathedral was battered and neglected. In 1831 Victor Hugo published The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and the novel's success revived interest in the building. From 1844, the architects Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc led a major restoration that included a new spire of timber and lead.

On 15 April 2019, a fire destroyed the roof and brought that spire down. The cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024.

The rebuilding reproduced Viollet-le-Duc's spire, so what you see today is faithful to the nineteenth-century silhouette.

3What to look out for

• The Gallery of Kings above the doorways: 28 statues of the kings of Judah. The originals were torn down during the Revolution, which mistook them for kings of France.
• The west rose window, about ten metres across, framing a statue of the Virgin.
• Point zéro, set into the paving of the square.