Only the great rose of the façade, whose thousand colours were engulfed by a horizontal sunbeam, shone in the shadows like a jumble of diamonds and echoed their dazzling spectre at the other end of the nave. The counter-naves were full of darkness, and the lamps of the chapels were beginning to twinkle, the vaults becoming black. “The cathedral was already dark and deserted. With Notre-Dame de Paris, Hugo depicts the vibrant, intense atmosphere of 15th century Paris, a vision that brought forth a resurgent fascination for the Gothic. Its rays, more and more horizontal, are slowly withdrawing from the pavement of the square, and rise along the steep façade, with the thousand round bumps protruding from their shadows, while the great central rose blazes like the eye of a cyclops inflamed by the reverberations of the forge.” A light in the heart of darkness It is the moment when the sun, already heading for the horizon, looks almost directly opposite the cathedral. Especially on those days of clarity, warmth and serenity, there comes a time when we must admire the portal of Notre-Dame. “It was one of those spring days of such sweetness and beauty that all of Paris, spread across squares and promenades, celebrated like a Sunday.
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