The insurgents turned it into a temple to reason, melted down the treasure and broke the 28 statues of the Kings of Judah from the western facade, believing them to be images of French sovereigns. But the most difficult time for the church was during the Revolution years when it was ransacked and severely damaged. In the mid-1500s it sustained serious damage by the Huguenots - the French protestants who refused to worship the Virgin and the saints and consequently destroyed images of them. The church also suffered various other vicissitudes in connection with important episodes in French history in the centuries that followed. Around 1250 the western towers and the rose window on the north side were ready, but the work was only completely finished in 1345. Then in the first half of the 13th century the splendid facade that you are now looking at was finished. Easier said than done - it took almost two centuries! Pope Alexander III laid the first stone in 1163, and over the next 20 or so years the apse and choir were completed. It all began in the middle ages when the bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully, realized that the old basilica of Saint-Étienne was falling into ruin, and decided to replace it with a new church. Whilst you're gazing at the gargoyles - the extraordinary monstrous creatures adorning the western facade, I'll tell you the fascinating story of Notre-Dame.
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