Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral is still today a magnificent and safe edifice. But as beautiful as it may be in its old age, one cannot help but sigh, to be indignant at the countless degradations and mutilations that time and men have simultaneously inflicted upon this venerable monument. Time has tarnished the colors, but it has respected the lines. Men have been more ferocious. They have broken, torn down, felled, sawed, sanded, scraped, ruined everything that was sculpture, ornament, statue, everything that adorned this cathedral. And yet enough beauty remains for the eye to linger long on the main façade. This façade consists of three large basket-handle doors, surmounted by a gallery of kings, a large central rose window, two lateral windows, and two large square towers. The whole is an admirable ensemble of proportion and strength. The rose window, above all, is a masterpiece of tracery and boldness. It looks like an immense lace of stone, where the rays of the Virgin and the angels mingle in a network of foliage and flowers. Below, the small arches of the kings, with their niches, form a crown of characters. Each detail has its meaning, each ornament is a thought. The history of the people and of faith is written on this façade. It is there that the sculptor and the architect have put their soul. The towers, for their part, rise straight and severe, keeping a mystery of reverie. They are like two giants watching over the city. Time has blackened their stone, but has not been able to humble them. They still dominate Paris, from their height of four hundred feet. And in the evening, when the setting sun reddens the old basilica, one seems to see a great stone vessel, motionless, sailing through fiery clouds. Such is Notre-Dame, as it still appears to those who know how to look at it. But alas! it is no longer that which the Middle Ages had dreamed. The Revolution passed that way, and left its mark. It shattered the statues of the saints, it scattered the relics, it made of the edifice a Temple of Reason. Then time erased those outrages, but the wound remained. However, beneath the layers of grime and silt that centuries have deposited, the genius of the builders still lives. A single glance is enough to recognize it. And never has it been more felt that, in this monument, there is a soul. It is a stone cathedral, but it is also a poem of faith. Every edge, every voussure, every pillar sings a praise. The bells, in their towers, tell the hour and the prayer. And when the carillon sounds, one seems to hear all of France quivering. That is why Notre-Dame de Paris is more than a building: it is a book, a book where the people have written their history in characters of stone. And this book is open to all those who know how to read. It tells of the faith of the fathers, the suffering of the humble, the glory of kings, the wisdom of saints. It is in itself a library and a museum. But above all, it is a prayer. For this cathedral, before being a masterpiece of art, is a house of God. And it is for this reason that it still endures, standing amidst the ruins of time.