Before I had a chance to ask Carter more about where he’d heard that outrageous figure, we were ushered into a dark room. In the crowd and relative darkness, I lost him immediately.
The room wasn’t entirely devoid of light. The square, high-ceilinged room was fitted with overhead lighting only at the edges, which pointed toward the display on the walls. For a moment, I forgot all about the supposed Victor Hugo illustration and stonemason’s journal. I was transported to another time. Or rather, a range of times that spanned the past.
Instead of artwork or other historical objects, a mural stretched across the walls showing the timeline of the history of Notre Dame. Along with a true timeline with dates and text along a thick black line that circled the room, an artist had used subdued colors to tell the story of the cathedral visually.
The first date was in the twelfth century. The cornerstone of Notre Dame de Paris — Our Lady of Paris — was laid in 1163. The original architectural records were lost long ago, but we know generations of workers spent their lives laboring at the site and never saw its completion. The finishing touches of the cathedral were put in place nearly 200 years later, in 1345.
Notre Dame Cathedral cost about $1 billion in today’s dollars to build. A 3-D video played next to the first date on the timeline, showing how the stones were built up, and how new technology had advanced to make it possible to build taller buildings with thinner walls that could also accommodate the huge stained-glass windows. A lot of new, experimental features were being forged with Notre Dame. Yet still, the weight was underestimated, so stress fractures. The solution was flying buttresses, arches braced into the walls, which Notre Dame was one of the first cathedrals to use.
The timeline went on, showing the kings and their successors who presided over the construction over many generations and wars. Through the Hundred Years War, work on the cathedral continued. Henry VI of England was crowned King of France in the cathedral; he was ten years old.
In addition to Catholic masses and ceremonies of state, it was also the site of executions. The last of the Knights Templar was burned at the stake in the courtyard in 1314. Numerous restorations over the centuries kept the cathedral structurally sound and as a thriving church, before the French Revolution of 1798, when the cathedral briefly became a temple of reason.
By the time Victor Hugo wrote his novel, much of the cathedral was a wreck, with purposeful destruction that included beheading the prominent stone statues of kings, until the cathedral’s savior appeared in the 1830s. That savior had an unexpected face. A bohemian artist and writer who was active not in the church but in the politics of the day.
Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris was published in 1831. The Gothic novel inspired the public, capturing their imaginations and filling their souls with French pride. The novel imagined the cathedral as it was in the Middle Ages. Quasimodo, the tragic bell-ringer at the heart of the novel, rang the bells of the cathedral to let Parisians know when to wake up, when their day of labor was over, and when to attend church. That much reflected life in the Middle Ages compared to the nineteenth century.
Quasimodo also lived among a wide array of gargoyles in the cathedral—most of which didn’t exist when the novel was written. Far more Gothic creatures were sprinkled throughout the story than existed in reality.
Thus most of Victor Hugo’s depiction wasn’t what the cathedral looked like in the Middle Ages. That’s what had been misrepresented in the illustration of the cathedral on the billboard in the airport as well. The gallery of gargoyles that throngs of visitors climbed hundreds of steps to visit, up until the fire, fit so perfectly into the ethos of Middle Ages that it was easy to assume that’s the period of time from which they’d sprung. I was glad to see the exhibit educated viewers with the true history.
The timeline ended with the last years of the previous century, with the 800th anniversary celebrated in 1963, and a minor restoration in the 1990s that addressed the damage pollution had done to the stone.
Even though I knew much of the history already, the visual timeline was so engaging that I kept forgetting to look for ways an alchemist who wasn’t pure of heart might think to get inside.
The doors leading into and out of the room were solid, but there were other ways into a room.
As above, so below.
That was one of the core principles of alchemists.
The hardwood floor under my boots was solid and didn’t creak under the weight of the hundred people in the room. There were no skylights in the high ceiling, but there were two vents, both of which would be large enough for a small-boned person to fit through.
A docent tried valiantly to keep me moving, since they’d packed more people in than was safe, and many more people were behind me. I let her usher me onward. I’d seen what I needed to.
In the next room, the newly discovered prized drawing took center stage. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed in the scent of old paper. Unlike the previous room, this one felt old. I could feel the history. To be more accurate, I smelled it. Even though the original documents were behind glass, I sensed the smokiness of charcoal, the crisp scent of vellum, and the earthy aroma of leather.
I was relieved to see the Lost Gargoyle of Paris behind a thick case of glass in the center of the room. The slim leather journal next to the illustration, in the same glass case.
The museum wasn’t taking any chances with security. In addition to the two security guards who flanked the two exits of the room, the cube that protected the illustration and journal was constructed of glass that looked way too thick to smash, and screws thicker than my fingers bolted the glass to a pedestal below.
Even Alkahest, the universal solvent, wouldn’t dissolve glass.
I couldn’t tell if the glass case was alarmed, but I spotted two security cameras pointing at it from different sides of the room. I looked away from them quickly, turning my attention back to the Lost Gargoyle of Paris.
Victor Hugo’s black pen-and-ink wash showed his skilled, sure hand. The rendering of the gargoyle showed not only the details of the unique horns and wings, but also proportions noted in charcoal pencil.
Carter’s information about the auction was correct. The placard underneath the illustration explained that it would be on display for a month before being auctioned off, with the proceeds given to the fund to rebuild Notre Dame cathedral.
Since the illustration had been found stuck inside a workman’s journal, there had been initial confusion about ownership. It was quickly cleared up when a descendant of the stonemason who lived in Paris said the family wanted to donate the illustration to the restoration. Madame Orleans was an artist herself, so she loved the idea of donating a piece of art that could help restore the cathedral.
A tall man with pointy elbows jostled me out of the way to get a better look at the illustration. I didn’t mind. I was more interested in the journal with the ourobouros on the cover. I wondered why I’d felt something was wrong with this discovery in the first place. Though I couldn’t look inside the journal or handle it, it felt like something from the 1850s. And I knew that many of Viollet-le-Duc’s drawings had come to light because of a similar discovery tucked inside the pages of an old journal, when the elderly granddaughter of one of the original stone carvers had gone through an old family box and discovered the forgotten treasures, now on display at another Parisian museum.
In this more brightly lit room, Carter found me as I was taking a surreptitious video.
“You’re a naughty one,” he whispered in my ear.
“Are you going to confiscate my phone?”
“Only to add my phone number, if I’ve charmed you to sufficiently to pretend your boyfriend doesn’t exist for the duration of your stay in Paris. No? In that case I’ll let you keep it.” He moved abruptly to the other side of me. “And I’m going to shield you from the line of sight of that guard.”
“Thanks.”
“Just be sure to tag me if you become Instagram famous for your photos.”
“All done.” I slipped the phone back into my bag.
“I don’t get it, do you?” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “All this fuss over a sketch on a piece of paper?”
Carter left before me, bored with the exhibit and saying he was going to at least try to return the scarves and needed to buy wine for the apartment courtyard sunset gathering.
I stopped at a bookshop to buy a few books to entertain Dorian while he was cooped up in the apartment, since I doubted the old reading materials in the apartment would keep him occupied. He might actually have read the old French dictionary he was using as a stepping stool, but he was verbose enough as it was. I didn’t need him getting more ideas.
When I arrived back at the apartment, I didn’t see the gargoyle. I’d expected him to greet me immediately, eager for news of the illustration.
“Dorian?”
Two gray horns appeared over the back of the tiny sofa, followed by an expanse of wings and the scowling face of a gargoyle. Like Quasimodo, he was used to hiding.
“We have been burglarized,” hedeclared.