1) In 19th century France, there was a profound questioning of French national identity amid political instability. Monuments were built to foster a sense of shared history and connection to the past. 2) Churches and cathedrals came to symbolize French national identity despite France's growing secularism. This was in part due to the Gothic revival movement, which celebrated Gothic architecture and saw it as a symbol of French culture and history. 3) Monuments like Notre Dame took on new meanings over time based on political views. They came to represent different things like feudalism, repression, or democracy depending on the era and author. Overall, preserving monuments was seen as preserving French history and national identity itself

1. Pattranist (Ploi) Boonsoong
Final Exam Paper: Paris Monuments – Professor Fraixe
17/12/2015
One of the most profound questionings of 19th
century France revolves around the notion of
creating a unified sense of the nation, of the French amidst new political regimes. The political
instability of the times forces one to question what it means to be French. It is the profound
questioning of French identity that makes monuments necessary. Monuments are built to
remember an event or an important figure to which allows people to foster a sense of communal
identity and to remember and connect with the legacy of their past. In terms of cathedrals and
churches, it seems peculiar that these religious buildings would be considered as a national
monument – a symbol of ‘Frenchness’in a time of growing, if not aggressive anti-clerical and
secular policies taking place. However, it is easy to conclude such on a base level. Yet
undeniably, churches and cathedrals have a religious purpose – most churches and buildings were
built prior to the 19th
century, namely the Notre Dame in 1482. Thus begging the question of how
could churches and cathedralbecome an instrument of sorts, in “the synthesis of the country”
(Emery, 11) and unifying the people.
The question of how cathedrals and churches became the ultimate symbol of the French nation is
thus best explored through the resurge of Gothicism. Perhaps it is important to first discuss, from
a foreign point of view, what first comes to mind when French monuments are mentioned. To a
typical tourist or foreigner, the Eiffel tower certainly is one of the first modern monument that
comes to mind – however, in terms of pre-20th
century monuments, it is the churches and
cathedrals that seem to draw in tourists. The image of France as a catholic nation in international
eyes is a legacy that is yet to completely disappear because of the existence of such monuments.
Perhaps only those who study French history and politics would understand the secular nature of
France, but to a completely removed bystander – France seems Catholic because of the existence
of these religious monuments that is so pervasive in the public sphere and is projected around the
world as a main attraction. Thus the dual nature of French identity – on one hand there is the

2. undeniable secular nature of politics, education and so forth, but on another there is a ever lasting
presence of clerical motifs that still occupy the public sphere regardless of it’s purpose.
The resurge of Gothic art, particularly in the terms of appreciation of the architecture of
cathedrals such as the Notre Dame was a means to celebrate the past and refuse the future. But
why is there such a desire to refuse the future? Perhaps it is attributed to the instability of political
nature of the nation post-revolution and post-Napoleon I in which the many different regions of
France have been merged together into departments and ‘forced’ almost to embrace a universal
sense of ‘Frenchness’. However, such universality had yet to exist. Thus the important of looking
back and appreciating feats of the past – in this case art and architecture. The restoration period
after 1814 was however, not truly an era of restoring the monuments – although a period of
appreciation it was also a period of invention of new things to put with the old. In the case of
Notre Dame the original gargoyles themselves have been destroyed during the revolution, and in
their place now stands newly imagined gargoyles by Violet le Duc – of which were possibly
inspired that Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo. The instance of the gargoyles is important in bringing
the Notre Dame, a religious monument and embodiment of Catholicism and a thing of the past
into the present. With the resurge in interest of Gothic art and literature – Victor Hugo was
successfulin relating the people to the cathedral, and in turn, Violet le Duc’s gargoyles is a new
embodiment of this resurge of not just Gothic style but the bringing of the past into the
contemporary times.
The fact that cathedrals and churches remain a prominent part of French nationalism, and is
seemingly synonymous to France in the eyes of foreigners could possibly be explained through
the Gothic revival. Perhaps in defining French national identity, it is also important to have a
model to define oneself against – in the case of Gothic architecture – it is defined against the
Germany and their claim of Gothicism as inherently German. In this regard, churches and
cathedrals are important as monuments to the sense of nationalism and national identity. Emery

3. explains that Goethe makes a comparison of the Strasbourg Cathedral, located in the French
region of Alsace, to a Gothic style with German origins1
. This battle of sorts, for the right to
claim the origins of Gothic style seemingly fueled it’s renewed interest in France. French
Gothicists publicize Gothic architecture as French art, which belongs to the “French genius”
(Emery, 22) – there is a sense of national pride in this claim. Although Gothic architecture
inspires “religious sentiments” (Emery, 12) it is also essential in reviving the arts in France – a
particularly important aspect that had been stunted by political turmoil. By drawing inspiration
from medieval themes prominent French authors were able to “renew modern French literature”
(Emery, 12). Having said the renewalof literature goes hand in hand with the new image of
Gothic architecture, in particular the Churches that are no longer symbols of authoritarianism and
the old regime but rather the sense of French history, legacy and triumphs. It is not about the fact
that these monuments are religious, so much that they are deemed French and are not only
valuable aesthetically but historically as it informs a sense of the nation.
Cathedrals become a place of moral support for not just for Catholics but also nationalists, artists
and writers. The revival of Gothic art through the appreciation of cathedrals was used by authors
such as Hugo to present a model of a feudal society (this “nostalgia for the artistic and spiritual
purity of this lost Golden Age” (Emery, 13)) based on the Middle Ages and as a result “created
symbolic registers that would remain attached to the cathedralthroughout the century” (Emery,
12). Hugo rebranded the Notre Dame as a “democratic structure” (Emery, 17) to which
architecture is the reflection of the culture that erected it. Although “Hugo’s concept of a
democratic Middle Ages dominated by the power of the people” was incorrect (Emery, 19) it did
not matter because he still appealed to, and influenced people of the 19th
century – the reality
behind these monuments were less important than how people reflect said monuments and relate
it to their lives. Through the example of the writers it is evident that monuments are used as a
1 Emery, The Synthesis of France; page 12

4. means of documenting; and the physical monument itself such as the cathedralis a “stone book”
(Emery, 16) that exists till today. Chateaubriand used the churches as a symbol of the catholic
faith while Victor Hugo used the church as a symbol of the nation’s democratic heritage.
Michelet, like Hugo praises cathedrals as a “place of the people” (Emery, 25) to which religious
democracy is in itself the beginning of the French national identity; this is certainly one way to
look at it but it seems more striking that rather than the religious purpose or architecture, the
monument can be used and was used to explain personal political and social ideas – in this regard,
monuments, especially the Gothic cathedrals and churches have a personal connection with those
who defend or attack it – regardless, it allows people to form personal opinions. As Emery
mentions, how one sees the cathedral, whether as a “utopian space of faith, a product of French
nationalism, or a decadent feudal structure” (Emery, 23) was based on political affiliation, and
such notion explains why the symbol of the cathedral transitions throughout the 19th
century as a
symbol of the feudal middle ages in the Second Empire to a symbol of repression in the Third
Empire and so forth2
.
The Sacre Cœur is another religious symbol and monument that occupies the public space in such
a pervasive way. Like the Notre Dame the basilica represents a certain identity, in this case,
Catholic. However, unlike the Notre Dame the Sacre Cœur was impossible to justify as an
inherently French and republican symbol – it was solely and aggressively Catholic. After the
1789 Revolution it became evident that there were two main camps dominating France, the
legacy of these camps: the Republicans and the Restoration (the Catholics) would drag on into the
19th
century. The Sacre Cœur was indeed a church but it was built in a style that was not really
French but rather modeled after the Italian Basilica – this already makes it hard to justify in the
eyes of Republicans as something that coincided with a French identity. To Restoration the Sacre
2 Emery, The Synthesis of France; page 28

5. Cœur was a signal for the return of monarchy and a reaction, or rather a protest, to the
Republicans and the communes. Despite the 1874 Royalist coup d’état’s failure the signal of
counter revolution is embodied through the domes of the Sacre Cœur that overlook the city of
Paris, and to some extent faces off with the Republican monument: the Pantheon. The Sacre
Cœur is however a triumphant building in terms of a being a symbol of Royalist power – it
symbolizes the Royalist program and the attempt to represent the relationship between France and
the Roman Catholic Church (by reinstating the image of France as the eldest daughter of the
Church). What is most important about the Sacre Cœur is perhaps not that it is only relatable to a
minority of French people, but instead that it is so visible. The objective of seeing and being
present is in turn another important aspect of monuments: the attempt to inform the sense of the
nation.
Lenoir’s Musée des Monuments was an attempt to preserve the notion of French history and
origins. As Haskell mentions it was “hardly an exaggeration to suggest that as an evocation of a
vanished world the ruins of Rome had at last found a rival in the redesigned rooms of the Petits
Augustins” (Haskell, 248) and the collection of these monuments in Lenoir’s museum is a
profound way to bring together in one place the legacy of the French – it is essentially a
monument containing monuments. These monuments are part of the idealism of inventing
history as a vesselfor nationalism in a contemporary world and trying to rationalize the purpose
of said monuments to the needs and agenda of the people. As history itself is a human construct,
such vision is embodied through the art in Lenoir’s Musée des Monuments, and Lenoir himself
can be considered as the “founder of historical studies” (Haskell, 250).
The role of churches and cathedrals (and gothic art) as monuments in the 19th
century was
therefore the embodiment of French identity and history in itself. In practical terms, not only are
cathedrals important as art forms, they are also essential to preserve as historical architecture
since it essential to French national identity itself. To preserve the monuments is in essence to

6. prevent from “seeing its past crumble away” – a past that is so essential to understanding the
nation itself. The ultimate purpose of cathedrals and churches, under the overarching umbrella of
monuments itself, is thus quintessentially to make sense of the conflicting ideologies and socio-
political life of 19th
century France.
Works Cited:
Class Notes
Francis Haskell, History and Its Images. Art and the Interpretation of the Pastm New Haven
&London, Yale University Press, 1993: chap. 9: <<Le Mussée des Monuments Français>>, p.
236-252
Elizabeth Emery, Romancing the Cathedrak:Gothic Architecture in Fin-de-Siecle French
Culture, Albany, State University of New York Press, 201: chap 1: << The Synthesis of France.
The French Context >>, p. 13-27