Notre Dame

Join Dan Snow in the heart of Paris as he kicks off his summer series exploring Europe’s greatest historic sites. From a leafy Montmartre café to the towering Gothic Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Dan teams up with local historian and guide Achille Couderc to uncover the deep history of Paris’s Île de la Cité—birthplace of the city. They explore the story of the Notre Dame through the ages - a witness to coronations of kings and Emperors, revolution and a devastating fire in 2019. This is your essential Paris listening before your summer getaway. Upcoming episodes in the series include: Edinburgh Castle, Napoleon's Paris, Pompeii, The Tower of London, Knossos and The Acropolis. You can book a tour with Achille! Email: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] for more information. Produced by Mariana Des Forges, edited by Dougal Patmore, and the production manager was Beth Donaldson. Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025! To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask! Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/ We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

  Hey friends, if you love this podcast and want to decide what history we cover, then you need to become a Dan Snow's History Hit subscriber. Pitch your topic and if I like it, we'll make it into a subscriber exclusive episode. So far, we've covered the English Reformation, the Hudson Bay Company, the Trail of Tears, all of which have been decided by dedicated subscribers. So take the reins of your favourite podcast by heading over to historyhit.com/subscribe or sign up in your podcast player.

• 0:32Speaker 01

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• 1:15Speaker 01

  Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 1:21Speaker 02

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• 1:58Dan Snow?

  Hi folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. You find me sitting at a street café. I'm shaded by leaves and the canopy. It is a perfect, blue-sky day here in the vibrant historic neighbourhood of Montmartre in Paris.

• 2:17Dan Snow?

  We're having a slow morning up here, watching Parisian life go by. And this is something that Van Gogh, Picasso, Renoir enjoyed in this part of town, on these cobbled streets with its vibrant café culture and its art galleries. We walked up this morning, me in sensible footwear, Mariana, the producer, wearing Birkenstocks.

• 2:42Dan Snow?

  We're here because, well, no excuse needed really, because life is beautiful, life is short, and where else do you want to be at the height of summer than in Paris? City of lovers and poets and frustrated military conquerors. And actually, lots of you have been in touch, and there are many of you who are planning on coming to Paris over the coming weeks, either from the UK or elsewhere in Europe, or from Canada and the US, to live out your dream European summer vacation. And for those of you who are looking for a podcast before you set off, give you a bit of history, a bit of context, a bit of inspiration, well, this is your podcast, folks. I'm going to be your guide to Europe this summer.

• 3:17Dan Snow?

  Over the coming weeks, I'm going to be travelling around, I'm going to be teaming up with local experts to bring you the stories behind some of Europe's biggest and most important historic sites. We're daring to cross beneath the portcullis of the Tower of London. We're climbing up to the mighty Acropolis. We are entering the Colosseum. You should see it, Maximus, in Rome. And we're wandering the ruins of Canusus.

• 3:48Dan Snow?

  So if you're looking for a travel guide or you need a bit of summer escapism, this podcast is your essential summer listening.

• 3:56Dan Snow?

  It's difficult for a Brit to admit, but where else are you going to start a European tour other than in Paris, the city of light? First up, we're going a fair way back in history. We're going to go to the world's most famous cathedral, those Gothic towers looming 70 metres into the sky. One that has captured the imagination of writers and artists for centuries, including one Victor Hugo, who wrote a little novel about a hunchback who lives in one of those bell towers. I'm talking about Notre Dame.

• 4:27Dan Snow?

  But first of all, me and the team are going to finish our coffee here. We're going to walk down to the Seine, past the Moulin Rouge. And then we're going to meet a local historian and guide, Achille Couderc, to explore the heart of the city and tell its incredible story. This podcast is for those of us fellow travellers who wish that there were more plaques, more interpretation on historic sites. We got you covered. Let's do it, folks. Bonne découverte.

• 4:58Dan Snow?

  I've come to the heart of the city, the geographical but also historic heart. I'm right by the banks of the river Seine. But the Seine here is very narrow because it's just one branch of the river. The other branch is just a few hundred metres away to the north. This is an island that sits in the middle of the Seine. This is the reason that Paris is where it is. This island was a crossing point. This island was defensible. This is what attracted humans to first settle here, trade here and defend themselves here. This is called Île de Sité. It's the birthplace of the city. And this is why, if you love history, this is one of those acres of Planet Earth where the history is so densely packed. It's amazing we can walk around it at all. It's up there with Jerusalem, it's up there with Rome.

• 5:44Dan Snow?

  Just think of the people that have stood on this little island where I am now. Julius Caesar conquered it. This was the island that was attacked by the Vikings, maybe even the semi-mythical Ragnar Lothbrok. This is the island that was visited by a who's who of the people. People of medieval Europe. Richard the Lionheart, William the Marshal, Louis XIV would have crossed these bridges and Napoleon crowned himself. Charles de Gaulle came straight here when he took part in the liberation of Paris in 1944. Today, the island is dominated by Notre Dame, the cathedral of the city of Paris. It's a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, but it's actually a symbol, as we've really learnt since the fire in 2019. It's a symbol of Parisian resilience, of beauty.

• 6:29Dan Snow?

  There's a big open space in front of the western end of Notre Dame, and it's now full of people craning up to look at this magnificent building. You can look up at those two towers that are so famous, like huge rose window in the middle, the legendary gargoyles. Every brick, every layer of this building tells a story about the history of Paris, also the history of architecture, of engineering in the medieval world. This church has witnessed so many of the significant events of French history over the last 850 years. It has seen coronations and revolutions and World War and dramatic restoration. This truly is the centre of Paris. So this is where I'm going to meet my wonderful guide, Achille.

• 7:15Dan Snow?

  Achille, how are you?

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Hi Dan, how are you?

• 7:17Dan Snow?

  Good to see you.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  It's good. Despite the heat, it's very good to have you here.

• 7:20Dan Snow?

  It's hot, but look at this building behind us. We've got the bells ringing out, still got some scaffolding on the roof for the after that terrible fire, which we're going to talk about, but tell me, what, I guess, where are we? Why is this enormous church here on this, because we're right next to the river as well. So why is it right here on this little island?

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Oh, that's actually the best question to ask because it questions of why Paris was created in the first place. We're on the Île de la Cité, literally the city island, and this is where the city started some 2,500 years ago. And as always, the point of being on an island is to define yourself and to have also control over who crosses the river, so you can make them pay, plus you can use trivial commerce. So it's perfect. Same reason why London was in the Giroir River. And so when the Romans arrived, that is interesting, because Julius Caesar, he described it as the muddy city, Lutetia, and this is where the name comes from. So the Romans, they continued building on here

• 8:20Speaker 03

  once they controlled the city and on the left banks. But so here, because it's the city island, you had the Palais du Roi, the Palais de la Cité, where the king resided until when they moved to the Louvre in the late 1300s. So for about a thousand years, you had the king here and you had all main bodies of administration. You had the Hôtel Dieu, which was the main hospital in the Middle Ages in Paris. And of course, you had the first Roman cathedral right here.

• 8:44Dan Snow?

  So it was packed, everything was packed onto this little island, wasn't it?

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:47Dan Snow?

  It would have felt very medieval.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Very medieval, yes. If you want to have a sense of what medieval Paris looked like, you need to go to the left bank in some little streets. For example, the oldest house in Paris is the house of Nicolas Flammel in De Marais. And Nicolas Flammel, you might know at least from Harry Potter, because he is in the philosopher's stone or the sorcerer's stone for you Americans listening. And he's the one who supposedly made the philosopher's stone, the one turning everything into gold, right? And his house still exists and it's a restaurant and you can go check it out.

• 9:19Dan Snow?

  And the one other holdout from medieval period is this gigantic church right next to us now.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:24Dan Snow?

  When was that started?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  So construction broke in the 1160s. Now, it's unclear exactly when, but in the 1160s with the nations of the King of France. And it started on the urging of the bishop at the time, Maurice de Sully. It's more of an expression of how Paris is exploding in terms of wealth and population.

• 9:47Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  At that time, Paris is transitioning from a small medieval city to a massive capital. It will go in the 1300s with 25,000 inhabitants, making it the largest city in Northern Europe and the largest if you just exclude Italy. So you need more space for more people, just like when people build new stadiums. Think of like people moving out of the old Arsenal stadium to go to the new one, because you have more people attending. Well, the old cathedral could not have that many people. Notre Dame was built to have 5,000 worshippers at one moment, which at the time would be one-fifth of the city that could go in for, for example, Christmas mass.

• 10:27Dan Snow?

  Incredible. And, I mean, it took centuries.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  Literally centuries.

• 10:32Dan Snow?

  It's probably never been finished, but to get to a point of sort of completion, it was, for how long?

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Yes. So we estimate that it ended in the mid 1300s, so about 180 years after start. Although, the first round was finished after 70 years. And arguably could serve and did serve as the cathedral after 70 years. It's just that after that time, they had new techniques, they had new ways of making, and they had new crafts, they had new appetites, and more money. Because after that time, you had, for example, Normandy and Languedoc, who became part of the royal estates, which meant more money for Paris, more money, more people working, so you could do more elaborate, and this is...

• 11:11Dan Snow?

  We know that story. Yeah, yeah, okay. So that's interesting. So actually, this is a reflection of the increasing power and wealth of the French crown, particularly as they gobbled up the land that had been Plantagenet, that had been ruled by the kings of England, out to the, out to the West.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  So more than just things that belonged to the other kings, it's really the gulp-out things that belonged to their vassals. Vassals that were very independent in the feudal system, contrary to, you know, the imaginary, that we have on like the king and everyone is really obeying the king. No, they would all be minding their own business in their own corner. So the king, having more and more land, meant that he was more and more powerful, and he could impose more and more his power over his own kingdom. And it was not just a theoretical one. And building Notre Dame was a way of stating how powerful he is. Like, maybe you've read or seen the show Pillars of the Earth. In this, the author makes it clear how the construction of cathedral is much more than just a religious show.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  It's a show of wealth, of power, and of the whole region around the cathedral. Right? Because that's why they are so tall. The Swiss were tracked and blew everyone's mind when they approached the city and they can see that from far away. Think of that opening scene in The Houndback of Notre Dame. You can see it from far away, over the clouds. That was the effect wanted at the time.

• 12:25Dan Snow?

  Was it very innovative in its construction?

• 12:27Speaker 03

  It was, and you can actually see it in the facade itself, because if you look at the bottom part, see how bulky it is? It reminds more of a castle

• 12:34Dan Snow?

  That's right.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  than a Gothic cathedral. But the more you look up, and we're gonna go around, and you'll see how more lavish it is, especially on the transit, which is the part that is perpendicular to the rest of the church. It's more and more lavish, because people developed more and more skills throughout the hundreds of years. And you can literally see, right now, by looking at the facade, the evolution from early Gothic at the bottom, to the Gothic rayonnant at the top. And I found that brilliant, because we can see the imprint of all these periods of time adding up.

• 13:09Dan Snow?

  Amazing. And you're staring up, this building is spectacular today. There's people taking photographs of it, peering up at huge queues to get in. How spectacular this must have felt then to medieval, well, people living in the countryside, or even people living in Paris, when it would just, it would have dwarfed every other structure in the city.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Completely. It would have dwarfed everything. Although, it's worth noting that at the time, people would live in buildings of like, three, four, sometimes five stories high. Because there was lacking space, and you needed to be inside the walls of the city to be protected and have the commercial rights inside.

• 13:43Dan Snow?

  Right. So on this island, it actually would have been extraordinarily dense.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Exactly. It's very tiny, very filthy also streets, because people would just like, throw everything out in the streets. Hoping that they would end up going in the river at some point.

• 13:57Dan Snow?

  So animals are doing their business on the streets, there's garbage, there's household waste.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, people would throw their pieces in the streets like that. Better not be in the middle of the street. That's why people would walk on the side, so that people would throw them. And if you're just directly under the window, you have less risk of receiving something. That's why in French, we have an expression, when someone is in a high position, we say that he is holding the high pavement, meaning that he is high on the road. Tenir le haut du pavé.

• 14:26Dan Snow?

  Meaning that he's safely on the pavement.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:28Dan Snow?

  Everyone else has to walk in the middle of the street.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Exactly, and when someone is meeting them and you have to choose whose, well, you have the higher status. So people need to go and go in the middle, where it's riskier to receive poop on your head.

• 14:41Dan Snow?

  And the sand, which we're standing beside now, would have been disgusting, with the tanneries were here, it would have been, I mean, it would have been toxic.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  I mean, in a way, maybe not as toxic as it was in the seventies, with all the industry releasing all its chemicals in there. But for our modern standard, disgusting, into the like feces and excrement and all sorts of human and animal exhaustions would end up in there. But one thing is nice about the sand is that it's a strong current, so it pushes everything out. It's not a dormant river. And by the way, now the river is sane enough for people to take a swim. Today, it's opening for swimming in the sand.

• 15:19Dan Snow?

  So now, let's look at one of the most famous facades in the world, you've got these two magnificent towers, you've got a gigantic rose window in the middle, lots of carvings. Are those kings, or are they apostles, or are they saints along there, those figures above the top of the door?

• 15:32Speaker 03

  So that's very interesting. There has been a big misunderstanding about them. They are the kings of Judea, so the kings that are listed in the Book of Kings. But during the French Revolution, people mistook them for kings of France, and they were brought down and destroyed.

• 15:47Dan Snow?

  Oh, really?

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Because they thought they were kings of France. Now you can find the original statues destroyed in the Musée de Cluny, which is the medieval art museum in Paris. And it's a beautiful one. I highly recommend you go check it out, because most of the original statues are there.

• 16:03Dan Snow?

  And then I suppose, the thing I remember when I was a kid, was these gargos, which are fabulous, particularly on Notre Dame. What's going on with them?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  So, do you know where it comes from, the word gargos?

• 16:12Dan Snow?

  No.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Well, it comes from French, garbouille, like a lot of English words. Gare, it's the throat. Et gouille, it's... Gare, how do you...

• 16:26Dan Snow?

  Clearing your throat?

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's say clearing your throat.

• 16:30Dan Snow?

  Yeah, clearing your throat.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  And so, do you remember what they served for originally? They had purpose.

• 16:35Dan Snow?

  Were they drained with rainwater?

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Exactly, they were taking out the rain so they would not fall on and cascade down the precious ornaments on the facade and take it out, far away from it. So that the water would not damage the stone, because everything in Notre Dame is made of limestone, which is abundant in Paris but very, very fragile to erosion. And also very porous to pollution, that's why it's so nice that it's been restored. So gurgles, they served that, plus they're beautifully embellished for several reasons. First of all, the medieval art is fascinated with monstres. The figure of the monstres, which comes from montrer in French, which means "point out". And monsters, they populate every book, I mean, you've probably seen them everywhere. They are fascinated with weird creatures. And this was to scare off evil spirits away, especially the devil.

• 17:23Dan Snow?

  Well, they look devilish themselves, but I'm glad they're on the right side.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  And there's another thing interesting about the gates right here is that if you look at the gates and the doors especially, they have these beautifully intricate ironwork. Like, it looks like it's ivy on it, growing naturally from the beautiful wood of the doors themselves. Now, it was so well made that people thought that no humans could have done that. And then, rose during the Middle Age in Paris, a folk tale about the smith who fooled the devil. So, this young guy, this young smith, wanted to work on Notre Dame, but he was too young. So, the head of works said to him, "Hey, if you can make the whole ironing of all the doors in 24 hours, then you're in." Of course, knowing that it was perfectly impossible, and he was young and daring, and so he said, "I'm gonna do that."

• 18:11Speaker 03

  And he tried, but of course, in the middle of the night, he felt overwhelmed and said, "I'm never gonna do that." And when you say, "I'm never gonna be able to do that," who arrives, trying to say that they're gonna save your ass? The devil arrives and say, hey, I can help you. I can make the most exquisite iron work the world has ever seen. And every credit will come on to you. I only ask for a tiny, tiny thing, your soul. The guy accepts, of course, or else there's no story. And in the morning, everyone's baffled because there is this exquisite work. And it was like, how was that possible? And everyone's reviewing this young guy. But when the devil arrives to take his due, the guy ends up falling into the cathedral and he will live for the rest of his life because the devil cannot go inside.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  And it probably is one inspiration behind the Hundredback of Notre Dame, having to live his whole life inside, not being able to go out, seeking asylum from the cathedral. So he's the guy who made the devil work for God.

• 19:09Dan Snow?

  Shall we go in?

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Pleasure. The interior is absolutely fabulous, so let's dive in.

• 19:13Dan Snow?

  Lead on, Achille.

• 19:18Dan Snow?

  We're in Paris, folks. This is our guide to one of the world's greatest cities. Back in a minute.

• 19:27Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us, mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 20:08Dan Snow?

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• 21:13Dan Snow?

  Check Deckagon out at deckagon.ai/dansnow.

• 21:21Speaker 01

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• 22:03Speaker 01

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• 22:10Dan Snow?

  Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from History Hit. Twice a week, join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History Hit.

• 22:48Dan Snow?

  Home, ok, that is unbelievable. I have not been here since I was a kid and that is beautiful.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Isn't it?

• 22:54Dan Snow?

  Oh, I mean this long nave is extraordinary, isn't it?

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this long nave here is typical of Notre Dame. Because the length was unparalleled. Now, by the way, for everyone that might not know that, it comes from navé in Latin, which means the ship. Because if you look up, you'll see that it looks like it's an upside-down ship.

• 23:13Dan Snow?

  Yes, it does.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  That's why. And then you have the second part of the church, which is the transept, which makes like a cross. Another thing interesting is that Notre Dame is not perfectly aligned. This nave is not perfectly straight.

• 23:23Dan Snow?

  Is that right?

• 23:24Speaker 03

  Yep. If you look straight on, you cannot see the sun exactly raising up. Which is odd, because usually churches are made to be exactly parallel with the sun.

• 23:34Dan Snow?

  And is that because of the shape of the island or why is that?

• 23:36Speaker 03

  It's because of the shape of the island. Plus, and this is where people disagree on is that intentional or not? It's probably not intentional, but they say that it's because the head of Christ on the cross leaned on one side. And so that's why if you look at a plan of Notre Dame, you will see that it's actually slightly tilting by the choir, which is the back, but it's also the most important part.

• 23:57Dan Snow?

  Can we just first of all talk about some of the history? Some of the events that this magnificent church has witnessed? And my personal favorite, and the one that I am still remembering fondly as a sliding doors moment in history, and it could have gone either way, is the coronation of the young boy. Henry VI, King of England, who became Henry the... something, King of France.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:19Dan Snow?

  Henry III, I think, actually. And then because of his father Henry V's conquests, for that brief moment, England and France were nominally under the same king. And if I had that enjoyed, well, history would have been a better place. We'd have all been one big happy family. Anyway, that must have been extraordinary, but that took place in this church?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  It did, yes, it did. Because Paris was under the control of the alliance between the English and the Vorgans at the time. First of all, Henry VI is the grandson of the King of France, Charles VI. The beloved, then called the Mad King.

• 24:50Dan Snow?

  Yeah, he thought he was made out of glass.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  Poor thing.

• 24:53Dan Snow?

  Disaster.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  You do need one mad king at any point to make, you know, a real medieval history of your country. And so he's French, and his mother is French, so he's English-French. Which means that he had a claim. And I'm sparing you all the details, but that's why the Hundred Years' War started. Both the English king and French king had claims on each other's kingdom. Again, it's very complex and it's not that interesting, especially if you're really nerdy about ancestors.

• 25:20Dan Snow?

  Which we are, which we are.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 25:21Dan Snow?

  And we believe that the Plantagenet House had a better claim than the House of Valois. And therefore, what happened here in this wonderful church on that special day was that they were on the right side of history. And it would have enjoyed had it not been for Joan of Arc who emerged at this time. And the fact that Henry VI was the worst king in British history, so.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Pucelle d'Orléans, the Virgin of Orleans, she was known. Fifteen years old and yet she became the leader of the French army. Now, of course, when you're said that you're called by God. For the enemies, you are called by the devil. That makes sense. That's why it's so fun whenever both sides are claiming that they're fighting for God. One technically must be wrong. Which, I mean, you're saying that Plantagenet had a better claim, but Vatican recognizing that Joan of Arc was a saint. Technically, for all Catholics in the world, Joan of Arc was on the good side.

• 26:06Dan Snow?

  Okay, fine. All right, well, we can agree to disagree on that one. But it is amazing, isn't it, to think of the historical events that are taken in this church. It's extraordinary, isn't it?

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Now, let's go have a look at the Crown of Thorns.

• 26:19Dan Snow?

  Claims to be.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  What claims to be, yes, of course. What is important about the Crown of Thorns, if you want to go see it, please be careful that it is a relic for worship. And so, please do not just go there to amuse yourself. It's, even if you don't consider it to be the truth, respect the ones who do. And it's only on display on Friday afternoons.

• 26:40Dan Snow?

  Really?

• 26:41Speaker 03

  The rest is hidden.

• 26:42Dan Snow?

  Really?

• 26:43Speaker 03

  You can only worship it for two hours on Friday afternoon. So the Crown of Thorns story is quite interesting. So it goes all the way to Helena, the mother of Constantine.

• 26:51Dan Snow?

  And she was a passionate Christian, wasn't she?

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Yes, but she was also, she can be considered the first archaeologist in the world.

• 26:58Dan Snow?

  She dug up Jerusalem stuff.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Exactly, and she found, or claimed to have found, the Crown of Thorns. And then it stayed in Constantinople, which became later on Istanbul. Until the Crusaders took the city.

• 27:09Dan Snow?

  Oh, yes.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  And then you have Bouddhine II, who was a Catholic king there. He was being attacked everywhere by his own Orthodox subjects. Subjects, yes. And he had to raise money. And so he literally pawned the Crown of Thorns to a Venetian merchant. And hearing that, Saint Louis, the King of France, who was, as the name implies, a beggar, he went above and beyond to buy it. He spent 220,000 livres tournois, which would be half the annual treasury of the Kingdom of France, acquiring it.

• 27:41Dan Snow?

  Whoa.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  And then he built the Saint Chapelle, which is not too far in Anchorage. You have a look at it, it's gorgeous, as a big chasse. A chasse is a place where you keep a relic, so it's a chapelle that is built to be like a giant chasse for this and was meant to be for his eyes only. And you have to wait hundreds of years, the 1800s, for the Crown of Thorns to be displayed in Notre Dame for everyone to worship. And we are right now in front of the beautiful, modern creation where it is displayed on Friday afternoons. But since we're recording that on a Tuesday, it is not here.

• 28:12Dan Snow?

  As large relics go, they don't get much bigger than that.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  I mean, it's a pretty big deal. Here we are just behind the pieta. While you were talking about a coronation, let's talk about another one, which is even more famous, I'd say, for everyone that heard of Napoléon.

• 28:26Dan Snow?

  Oh, yes.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  You have probably.

• 28:28Dan Snow?

  And of course, that took place in here, didn't it?

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, it did, it did. And if you've seen this very famous painting of his coronation, where, by the way, he's crowning himself, yes, baddest power move ever, well, he's doing it in Notre Dame. But it's hard to recognize it because Jacques-Rudin David, the painter, had instruction of disguising Notre Dame so he would not take away from the grandeur of the future emperor. That's why it doesn't look really like Notre Dame, except if you look at the pieta, and the pieta is Mary holding the body of her dead son, which is exactly the one that we're seeing.

• 28:59Dan Snow?

  I've never thought about that, because the painting actually looks like they're in a kind of more rounded classical setting, almost like the sort of Roman Senate or something, doesn't it? That's interesting.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  That's also something very interesting, is because Notre Dame didn't look like this also. It's because it was much more of a modern church, a modern cathedral.

• 29:14Dan Snow?

  So if we'd come in here in the Gothic period when it was built, would there have been a riot of color? It's very, very white now, very plain, isn't it?

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you would have colors everywhere. You would have paintings, murals, everywhere, because remember, people could not understand Latin at the time, nor could they read. So they could read on the walls what happened in the Bible. And it's way more appealing for people at the time to have colors. It's funny how most movies about the Middle Age tend to have...

• 29:39Dan Snow?

  Everything's gray.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  Everything's gray, muddy, and people are desperate, and you know, it's cold, and winter is coming, and you know, it's... And you just want to hear, "John Snow." Talking about how cold everything is and how dark and how gloomy. But when you look at Middle Age, it's actually very, very colorful. I recommend if you play video games to play Tales, which is a French video game set in the Middle Age. It's very good and it shows you this plethora of colors and culture at the time. And it's, it's really nice. And this takes us to another very important part of this story of Notre Dame is that the Notre Dame we're seeing today is a reconstruction. The Notre Dame we're seeing and the Notre Dame we all envisioned is the one of Viollet le Duc,

• 30:23Speaker 03

  the one who restored Notre Dame in the mid 1800s. And he demolished everything that Notre Dame had been seeing in terms of addition, reconstructions throughout the centuries since its first Gothic construction.

• 30:37Dan Snow?

  Right, so what, it had a complete refurb in the mid 19th century?

• 30:41Speaker 03

  It had throughout, actually. So that means that Notre Dame is continually changed throughout the hundreds of years that will follow, from the 1300s till the 1800s. Then it will become a Baroque cathedral under, for example, Louis XIV. They will hide the pillars. Most of the Gothic beautiful looking pillars, they were hidden because they were seen as hideous by people of the Renaissance and later on. And all statues inside were hidden or demolished or moved away. So Notre Dame didn't look at all like that at first glance and it looked more like the one you're seeing in the painting.

• 31:15Dan Snow?

  Interesting. So by Baroque, do you mean when Louis XIV, does he just cover it with some crazy gold and flowers shapes? And, and just go, I love that. So it was once kind of an over the top Baroque interior?

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, we can actually see still some, if we go have a look, we can see some parts that are still left of the original Baroque statues, especially because they are commemorative of people dead. So they could not be destroyed later on that easily. But you find that everywhere, no church was left alone.

• 31:42Dan Snow?

  And then presumably during the French Revolution, which was when there was a massive rejection of the Catholic Church and its institutions, did this remain as a church or was it taken over by the revolutions?

• 31:51Speaker 03

  So this is interesting. So we've been discussing outside the facade and the kings mistaken for kings of France, but... Inside, a lot of the religious symbols were taken out because this was transformed into a cathedral of the religion of reason, the Church of Reason, which today sounds like a cult. But at the time, it's something made of, from the philosophy of the Enlightenment. And this idea that we should not be bound by the conservative notions of the past religions. We can take everything that is beneficial of like the philosophy of the religions, but then make this new, humanely oriented, humanist religion, which was the Religion de la Reason.

• 32:32Dan Snow?

  How fascinating. So during the revolution, would Robespierre come in here and what, listen to sermons about sort of science and philosophy and things like that?

• 32:40Speaker 03

  So I don't know about Robespierre, to be fair about him specifically, but yes, it stayed, for example, a Roman Catholic cathedral for a few years. But then, in seventeen ninety-five, the Catholic religion was banned. And this made this one a reason church, if you want.

• 32:56Dan Snow?

  A church of reason.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Yes, and it re-became one later on when Napoleon reached more and more power to the pinnacle of the restitution to Catholicism, that is, the coronation of Napoleon with the presence of the Pope.

• 33:07Dan Snow?

  So Napoleon tries to win over some more conservative elements to his regime by restoring Catholicism, by bringing back some aristocratic elements to France.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Exactly. Napoleon, in a way, wants to make the best of two worlds, claiming that he's continuing in the path of the Republic by having, like, broadly speaking, representative parliament, et cetera, while having the aristocracy and the legitimacy of the church behind him. And of course, the Pope is more than happy to come to crown him because he's like, oh, this is my shot at reclaiming France, this huge kingdom, which was called the first daughter of church, back into the Roman Catholic Church.

• 33:43Dan Snow?

  So the Pope comes all the way here, Napoleon grabs that crown at the last minute and crowns himself, which I love.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  And in terms of the changes, you also need to know that during the reform and the religion wars in France, because we did have huge religion wars with the same Bartholomew. Well, he did have presidents who barged in several times in Notre Dame and destroyed precious religious items from the Gothic era as a way to... Oppose the papal and opulent display of religious symbols.

• 34:14Dan Snow?

  So just on the other side of the channel, Cromwell's Protestants used to stable their horses in the great cathedrals of England sometimes.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:20Dan Snow?

  So French Protestants burst in here and would strike down images and paint.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:24Dan Snow?

  Okay, interesting.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Except that they were minorities. So that was seen as like terrorist attack for them, right? They would place a bit of bombs, which of course served as an excuse to the Saint Bartholomew with tens of thousands of death later on.

• 34:36Dan Snow?

  The Saint Bartholomew Masques, yeah?

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:38Dan Snow?

  Okay, so Notre Dame, when you enter this building, even before the fire and restoration, it was about the second, it's an ever-changing landscape in here. There's no sense that what you're seeing now is what Louis XIV or Napoleon or Rote Pierre or Victor Hugo would have seen. But tell me about the 19th century, after Napoleon, what happens to this building?

• 34:56Speaker 03

  So after Napoleon, Notre Dame is still, it has stayed, the Cathedral of Paris. So the cathedral, by the way, is the seat of the bishop. So it's the most important church of all the churches in the bishopry. And it is getting old and it has all these layers of history onto one another. And this is where you were talking about Victor Hugo and it becomes very important because his impact with Notre Dame de Paris is comparable to the ones you were making about in your episodes about parrots with Treasure Island on the imaginary of what parrots were like. It stated what people wanted to see because people didn't want to see the Notre Dame that was layers upon layers of history and this what we call the historicity of a place or of a piece. They wanted to see the quote unquote original Notre Dame.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  And this is when you had a big call out for projects in the 1830s. Remember, Notre Dame de Paris is published in 1831. So it's right after that you have a call for the renovation, restoration. So you do have this sense of, this very romantic sense of patrimony that is starting to take form in the mental collective in Europe, that we need to preserve what the past has

• 36:03Dan Snow?

  Yes, as the Industrial Revolution is sweeping things away. Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so the book of Victor Hugo is a catalyst of that.

• 36:11Dan Snow?

  And then, so that's where we strip back to its more original, if you like, Gothic beginnings, medieval?

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:17Dan Snow?

  It looks a bit more medieval.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  It looks. Exactly, it looks, it feels medieval. Let's talk now about how it was recreated. Because a lot of places here, you can see on top of the pillars right here, the floral effects. We have no record of them being here. Maybe they were there, maybe they were not. But it's more about like trying to get the feeling of genuineness than having strong historical evidence. And what is very interesting is that Viollet-le-Duc, throughout his works, he pretended that he found through, quote-unquote, archaeological digs on site, more and more evidence of, oh yeah, that was like that. Even though there was not like that. The best part is like when he remade the spire, he used modern techniques. And how he legitimised that, he said, "Well, but if builders at the time had had these techniques, they would have used them."

• 37:01Dan Snow?

  Yeah, I love it. In Britain, nearly everything that we think of is ancient, is actually made up by the Victorians. And I'm glad to hear that's the same as true in France as well.

• 37:12Dan Snow?

  Paris isn't going anywhere, folks. There's plenty more coming up after this.

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• 38:30Dan Snow?

  Now, speaking of restorations and debates around how you restore, rebuild, preserve, tell me about 2019. That must have been absolutely shocking. First of all, what happened? I haven't checked in with this. Why did this building burn down?

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Well, that's the big irony of that. They were actually restoring the spire built by Viollet-le-Duc.

• 38:47Dan Snow?

  So they were restoring a spire that was only built just over 100 years ago?

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. And trying to copy the original medieval one that had been demolished. It's still unclear exactly today what happened because probably the people in the know know, but they don't want to say what happened. What we know is that the fire started early in the evening, probably because of malfunction of a machine.

• 39:09Dan Snow?

  Up in the roof, up there?

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Up in the roof, yes. And because it's very old wood, this one was very, very old, 800 years old.

• 39:14Dan Snow?

  Wow, what a shame.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  That started, the blaze started real fast.

• 39:17Dan Snow?

  Wow.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  And then, I remember, I was in Paris at the time, just going outside and you could see it from everywhere. And every Parisian was outside. And I remember not really grasping at the moment what happened. I remember feeling like, "Yeah, but I mean, it's stone, so it's sad for the roof, but you know, the stone don't burn." But then on the news, everyone was saying, "Yeah, but stone don't take well this kind of heat, and it's gonna dislodge."

• 39:41Dan Snow?

  And how bad, so the roof burns off, but how badly was the fabric, these wonderful columns and walls that we're surrounded by now, did they suffer as well, cracking and shifting?

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, so a lot was saved thanks to the bravery of firefighters who went into the blaze. Not saving people this time, but saving precious artifacts and relics. For example, the Crown of Faunce in Notre Dame was saved by firefighters. So were countless, countless works of art and relics in Notre Dame by people rushing in with the roof falling on their head. You have to imagine the scene, right? There was actually a movie about that. If you want to imagine it, you can see the movie. It's a pretty accurate reproduction of that. And everything, every furniture here was destroyed, burned down, everything is remodeled, but most of the statues were saved, spared, most of the glass as well. And just, quote-unquote, "needed a good scrub off." And actually, that was, in a way, bad for

• 40:33Speaker 03

  good because it gave enough time for real restoration. That Notre Dame hadn't seen well since the eighteen hundreds and since then we've had the invention of cars and industry and lots of fumes so we're seeing here much wider Notre Dame.

• 40:47Dan Snow?

  Yes, it's very white.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is, it is, very white.

• 40:50Dan Snow?

  And the glass is very, very clear, lots of light shining through today. That was twenty nineteen?

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Twenty nineteen, yes.

• 40:56Dan Snow?

  And so it took twenty, about five years, I mean that's quick.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  Yes, that was really quick because.

• 41:00Dan Snow?

  Do you guys want to come build some high-speed rail in the UK?

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Well, I guess it's really the symbol of it, the president Macron really went on TV to say we're a people of builders, we're going to rebuild it, which was really such a good spirit and movement all throughout the country, no matter your faith, no matter your origin. Another point is that Notre Dame received literally hundreds of millions of donations from all around the world, which helped in paying the best of the best all year long, all day long. So you had works twenty-four seven for five years, which explains how it could have been done so fast. Actually, it's not really finished, the exterior is still under.

• 41:37Dan Snow?

  As we saw outside, there's still a lot of work going on, but the interior is absolutely extraordinary. There were some big debates, weren't there, about putting a glass roof and using steel and and I suppose updating, you know, this debate around Notre Dame, how it's always changing. In the end, just looking from here, it looks like they went with quite a conservative sort of replacement. But am I wrong looking up? Tell me what they decided to do.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  I'd say even that more than a debate, it was a political breakdown where every party went in. Personally, I was in favor of doing something bold and new because why not? And these people, these builders, they were building something new and daring and bold at the time.

• 42:12Dan Snow?

  Of course they were back in the day.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  And no one told them, no, stick to Roman because people did that at the time and we don't want this horrible new thing that would be called later on Gothic. So I understand the appeal for something like that, but I would say that it's more an appeal of. Staying into the fantasy of Notre Dame as it was constructed in the 1800s, rather than a real aim at restoring the original "Notre Dame", because if you had done that, then you would have put colors everywhere, because we know that Notre Dame had colored walls everywhere, and not this pristine white marble or limestone here that is reminiscent of Greek temples, which were also, by the way, painted. So it's really all about the reconstruction of our look on the past.

• 42:52Dan Snow?

  I know that French society has been so divided over religion and monarchy and socialism and conservatism. And I know that Notre Dame has been part of that debate over the years with atheists who refuse to come in. Did the fire and the restoration, is this now back to being a national monument? Is this a place for everyone now?

• 43:12Speaker 03

  You know what I would say? I would say so, yes, despite all the debates, etc. This is why I love this place, because it really was brought up in the public discourse as a collective work. And one thing for me that is the most important, and we're debating about this conservatism or restoration or that, I'd say what is the most beautiful about Notre Dame is that it allowed people to live from their craft and to revive old precious craft that people had forgotten and people didn't care in this day and age of buy, throw away. And now, this cathedral is an M to not just the past. It's an M to the current state of French arts and craft. And for me, that is the most beautiful.

• 43:51Dan Snow?

  What a wonderful answer, Achille. Thank you very much. If people want to come on one of your fabulous tours, how can they get in touch with you?

• 43:56Speaker 03

  Well, it was a pleasure being with you, Dan. And yes, that would be lovely to have some of your listeners on my tours. They can book me privately through my email, which I guess is going to be in the footnotes of the episode. And yeah, just shoot out an email to me and I'll answer and we'll try to accommodate. I do a whole variety of tours in Paris. Of course, not just this one. I do museums and food tours, etc. So thank you very much for having me.

• 44:23Dan Snow?

  Well, it's just been a dream coming to Notre Dame since the Restoration, since those extraordinary innovations. So fast, the scale of it is amazing. It looks fabulous, both inside and out. And I love the fact that it sits right here on the île de la Cité, the heart of medieval Paris, a wonderful place to think about the cities historically more generally. We're going to head into the shade now because I've never been so hot in my life. We're going to chill out, might have a little lemonade. And then we're going to go out and record another episode for the series, because that's what we do for you, folks. We deliver, we work hard. This one is going to be all about Napoleon's Paris. You know I'm not coming to Paris without talking about the French Emperor himself. He was the man who transformed Paris, he turned it into the centre of an empire. He wanted it to be a city of such grandeur,

• 45:06Dan Snow?

  filled with gigantic monuments like the Arc de Triomphe, that people would think of it as the centre of the universe. And even though he fell a bit short, this city map, its layout, its texture, its vibe, is still largely a product of his remarkable ambition, megalomania, you can decide. That podcast will be on the feed later in this series, which is running throughout August. Make sure you follow so you don't miss an episode. If you're listening on Spotify, let us know in the comments where you want us to go. If not, you can always email us, [email protected]. We will go wherever you send us, within reason. See you next time.

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• 47:35Dan Snow?

  Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.