Let’s keep the stained glass and recreate the decor!

Tomorrow we’ll be publishing an article on the restoration of the interior of Notre-Dame de Paris, which we’ve finally been able to discover (hint: it’s superb), but we’d like to return here to the issue of the stained glass windows in the south aisle and the chapels.
Some people, notably the diocese, claim that since the mural paintings based on Viollet-le-Duc’s painted decorations that once adorned these chapels have disappeared, the stained glass windows are no longer justified and can therefore be removed.

This is tantamount to glorying in one’s own turpitude, that of the clergy and the Ministry of Culture at the time, which allowed these decorations to be destroyed, even though they were classified as historic monuments. It would also mean going even further and wiping out all traces of Viollet-le-Duc’s work in these chapels, even though, let’s not forget, they are theoretically protected along with the rest of the cathedral.

Instead, we would like to propose another solution, in fact the only reasonable one, which would logically accompany the very fine restoration work that is nearing completion. The gradual elimination of Viollet-le-Duc from the cathedral, which began in the 1950s, is not inevitable, and is even perfectly reversible. We have already mentioned the crown of lights, the chandeliers in the nave and the choir fence (see article), which could all be put back in place. But we could go even further in restoring the cathedral to the state it was in when it…