The front
page of today’s Washington Post showed a crowd of thousands packed into
the plaza in front of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, the congregation for a
requiem mass offered for the victims of Friday night’s terrorist attacks. The Eiffel Tower, notably darkened these days,
is surely the structure most deeply associated with the City of Light
today.
But the Cathedral, on the Ile de
France, has a much more central and iconic role in the city’s history. The Kilometre Stone, from which all French
roads are measured, is etched in its plaza.
It is probably the world’s most famous example of Gothic architecture,
which originated at the nearby Abbey of San Denis and reached its highest point
in the Northern French cathedrals of the high Middle Ages. Notre Dame speaks of an era when France was
truly the center of Europe, an age of great monasteries, the world’s finest
university, and the home of chivalry’s fairest flower, the saintly King
Louis. The French kings took the Virgin’s
emblem, the fleur-de-lys as their standard, and the Cathedral is dedicated to
their beloved patroness.
