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Terrible times for Notre Dame in 1793! In the cruelest period of the “Terreur” (Terror), the Galeries des rois de Juda (ancestors of Jesus according the evangel of Saint Mathias) was the object of revolutionary fury. Everybody was convinced that the 28 crowned statues were those of the kings of France. So they were loosened, decapitated and even soiled. According the chronicler Sébastien Mercier, the debris piled up on the parvis was used some time as public latrines. Then everybody used them as it pleased.  Certain parts became milestones that were found back later in the rue de la Santé.

Yes! It's Viollet-le-Duc!

But the most stunning had to come! In 1977, works started in the cellars of the Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur (bank for exterior commerce) and 300 fragments were exhumed, of which 21 of the 28 decapitated heads. You can see them today in the musée de Cluny. So what about the statues you see now at Notre Dame just above the entrance portal? Well, nobody may have told you but they are the work of pastiche sculptors hired in the 19th century when Viollet-le-Duc restored Notre Dame. 

Inscription at feet: Viollet-le-Duc !

He got inspired by medieval statuary to realize them but he used the opportunity to include some contemporary models like himself and two other architects (Jean-Baptiste-Lassus and Pierre-Emile Queyron). They figure next to the king of Old Testament!!

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