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Updated: June 17, 2025
In many parts, the recent restorations are quite evident; but other, and much the larger portions, can scarcely have been touched for centuries: for there are still the gargoyles, perfect, or with broken noses, as the case may be, but showing that variety and fertility of grotesque extravagance which no modern imitation can effect.
The sharp edge of that part of the mountain from which they were descending stood out in a clear-cut line against the sky, and on this edge the six dogs of the team sat squat on their haunches, silent and motionless, like strangely carved gargoyles placed there to guard the limitless plains below. Howland took his pipe from his mouth as he watched the staring interest of Croisset.
The building was commenced during the reign of Louis XII. and not finished until nearly the end of the reign of Francois I. It is therefore coeval with that richly carved house in the Rue aux Fevres. Along the sides of the church there project a double row of thirsty-looking gargoyles the upper ones having their shoulders supported by the mass of masonry supporting the flying buttresses.
The gargoyles of Notre Dame make similiar silhouettes against the sky, but seen near at hand what a menagerie of monsters!
It will give a wonderful and whimsical conception of those weird gargoyles and devils, which have only to be seen to awaken a new interest in what this great writer has put forth.
Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The gargoyles had been transformed into great false noses, drooping towards the point. The crockets were like upright pillows swollen on one side. In the intervals of the wind, there was a dull sound of dripping about the precincts of the church. The cemetery of St.
The dark old church of Notre Dame dates mainly from the twelfth century. Houses and small shops are built up against it between the buttresses in a familiar, almost confidential manner, and on the south side, the row of gargoyles have an almost humorous appearance.
For mere resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasure nor the superb intolerance of pain. There is a vital objection to the advice merely to grin and bear it. The objection is that if you merely bear it, you do not grin. Greek heroes do not grin: but gargoyles do because they are Christian. He said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
A huge reproduction in plaster of one of the most sardonic of Notre Dame's gargoyles seemed to preside over everything a terrible figure in such an atmosphere. As we entered, we were struck by the blinding glare of the light, in contrast with the darkened room in which we had passed our brief novitiate, if it might be called such. Suddenly the lights were extinguished.
The classic additions to the western part of the church seem strangely out of sympathy with the gargoyles overhead and the thirteenth century arcades of the nave, but this mixing up of styles is really more incongruous in description than in reality.
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