The Fête de la Raison at Notre-Dame

La fête de la Raison dans Notre-Dame de Paris le 10 novembre 1793, par Charles-Louis Müller (1878)
https://www.france-pittoresque.com/spip.php?article6903

On the evening of Gobel's abdication,  the Commune and the Department of Paris announced that the patriotic fête for the following décadi, 20 Brumaire (10 November 1793)  would take place in Notre-Dame:"the musicians of the National Guard and others will come to sing patriotic hymns before the statue of liberty, erected in the stead of the former Virgin Mary".  The printed procès-verbal for the Department also specified that the musicians of the Opéra would  be invited to perform their libretto  l'Offrande à la Liberté.  In his Circular the mayor, Pache, described the event as a fête de la liberté et de la raison.

A Calendar of Notre-Dame in the Revolution

The last days of the Cathedral Chapter

In the first months of the Revolution, the Archbishopric of Paris and the Chapter of Notre-Dame could do little more than follow the King's lead in seeking conciliation with the new  order.  Archbishop Leclerc de Juigné took his place in the National Assembly and the Cathedral became integrated into Revolutionary commemorations and ceremonial.

15th July 1789:   The new mayor of Paris, Bailly and a deputation from the National Assembly attended a Te Deum to celebrate the taking of the Bastille and the "re-establishment of peace".  Mgr de Juigné  personally led the delegates from Hôtel de Ville to the Cathedral.  On this occasion Juigné made a  personal gift of 20,000 livres for the unemployed workers in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, whilst the canons pledged 12,000 livres.

16th August:  A Te Deum was sung in thanks for the abolition of titles and feudal privileges on night of 4th August:  "this was the last of a series of actions of grace, more resigned than joyous, ordered by the Archbishop or the corps capitulaire" (Leflon (1964) p.111)


Sunday 27th September 1789 : The blessing  took place of the sixty flags of the Parisian National Guard.   Mgr de Juigné officiated in the presence of Bailly, Lafayette, the deputies of the National Assembly, the representatives of the Commune and the districts of Paris.  The abbé Fauchet, a member of the Commune, pronounced a decidedly secular discourse "on French Liberty" (reproduced in Delarc (1895) p.159-60). The military nature of the occasion was underlined by the salute of guns that was fired within the Cathedral.

Blessing of the flags of the National Guard, 27th September 1789
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8410825x.item

16th October 1789:  Following the October Days, the National Assembly held its final session in Versailles before transferring to Paris.  Archbishop de Juigné took his opportunity to leave France and go into exile in Chambéry.  A Mandement issued in Archbishop's name in February 1790, lists the seven vicaires-généraux, who now struggled to govern the diocese in his name.(Delarc, p.186).

A Hundred Marriages at Notre-Dame

On Monday 8th February 1779 a hundred couples were married simultaneously in a single splendid ceremony at Notre-Dame. I first came across a reference to this event in a copy of the early 20th-century guide book by E.V. Lucas, A Wanderer in Paris.  "Some very ugly events are in store for us;" we are told in the section on Notre-Dame,  "let something pretty intervene". The original source is an even more mawkish French work by a certain Pauline de Grandpré.  She paints a beautiful, romantic vision:  a hundred brides and grooms,  married at the behest of a beneficent royalty, in bright, candle-lit, flower strewn cathedral.

 Somehow this is a past that never quite was.... I decided to investigate.

19th-century visions of the Royal Family.
Imaginary scene by Charles Louis Lucien Muller (1857)   

On 19th December 1778, after nine years of marriage, Queen Marie-Antoinette was safely delivered of a daughter Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de France, later Duchess of Angoulême.  Relief was universal, since the birth of a dauphin now seemed assured. There were outpourings of official rejoicing. Marie-Antoinette herself decided the moment was right for a populist gesture:

"The Queen was persuaded by the love for her show by the citizens, to reply with an act of benevolence which would particularly extend to the people".

 Marie-Antoinette refused the celebrations offered to her by the municipality of Paris and asked instead that the money be employed to provide dowries for a hundred deserving poor girls, who would be married en masse on the day of the Royal thanksgiving service in Notre-Dame.  Additional allowances were be paid when a first child was born, with a higher rate available for mothers who breastfed.  As a further celebration of family life,  an elderly couple would be chosen to renew their marriage vows in front of their "children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren".

Notre-Dame of the imagination

If the Notre-Dame of the 19th and 20th centuries belonged to Victor Hugo, the Notre-Dame of the contemporary imagination belongs to the game Assassin's Creed Unity.  In 2014 the cathedral was reconstructed in loving detail by Ubisoft. Over 10 million gamers are estimated to have visited the virtual Notre-Dame, climbed over its roof and even scaled the now destroyed spire.

Notre-Dame in the 18th century (continued)

Anon, Cardinal Louis-Antoine de Noailles (1651-1729), Archbishop of Paris.  Musée Carnavalet.

The portrait commemorates the Archbishop's embellishment of Notre-Dame.  To the right, stonemasons can be seen at work. The architectural drawings at his feet are identified as: the Noailles chapel, the niche for the reliquary of St Marcel, the altars of the Virgin and St Denis and the vaulting of the transept crossing.  On his knees are the plans for the restoration of the South rose window

http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/portrait-du-cardinal-louis-antoine-de-noailles-1651-1729-archeveque-de

Exterior and structural repairs  c. 1700-1750  

It is easy to accuse Notre-Dame's 18th-century custodians of neglect. Despite the immense revenues of the diocese, even structural maintenance relied heavily on benefactors such as Canon La Porte and Archbishop Noailles himself, whose architectural initiatives are celebrated in the painting above from the Carnavalet.  According to Professor McManners, the early years of transformation, were followed by a period of repair and innovative restoration, and only then by "another of destructive incidents" [Church and society in eighteenth-century France, v.1 (1998) p.444]

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame in the 18th century

All of us, were dismayed by the terrible fire at Notre-Dame, though happily more of the Cathedral and its treasures seem to have survived than could at first have been thought possible. It is perhaps encouraging to remember that the building has been through many vicissitudes in its long history.....

Contemplation of the future, inevitably raises uncomfortable debates about reconstruction, restoration and reinterpretation. The Age of Enlightenment has not received a good press in this respect. Despite a grudging admiration for individual works of religious art, it has long been fashionable to follow Viollet-le-Duc and his contemporaries in condemning the 18th-century's disregard for the medieval past.  According to my 1977 Blue Guide, for instance, "Until the end of the 17C Notre-Dame had preserved intact its appearance of the 14C, but the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV brought deplorable alterations, particularly in the destruction of tombs and stained glass".