Notre-Dame de Paris

I sit peacefully on a little island in the middle of a sparkling river called the Seine. All around me is a busy, wonderful city called Paris. Two tall stone towers are my crown, reaching for the clouds. When the sun shines, my giant, colorful windows glitter like jewels. Sometimes, you can hear the deep, happy sound of my big bells ringing out over the city for everyone to hear. People look up at me and smile. I have been here for a very long time, watching the world change. I am the great cathedral, Notre-Dame de Paris.

My story began a long, long time ago. A kind man named Bishop Maurice de Sully had a dream to build a beautiful church, and my first stone was put in place way back in the year 1163. It took hundreds of talented people and almost 200 years to build me. Can you imagine that. Stonemasons carefully carved statues of saints and kings into my walls. Artists gently placed thousands of tiny pieces of colored glass together to make my beautiful round windows, which they called rose windows. To help me stand up so tall and strong, builders gave me special stone 'arms' on the outside. These arms are called flying buttresses, and they push against my walls so I can hold up my heavy roof and still have room for all my bright, beautiful windows.

I have been a witness to so much history. I have watched kings and queens come and go. I even watched a famous emperor named Napoleon Bonaparte have a grand ceremony inside my walls on December 2nd, 1804. But as the years passed, I grew old and tired, and some people started to forget about me. Then, a famous writer named Victor Hugo wrote a story about me in 1831. His book reminded everyone how special I was, and they fell in love with me all over again. Because of his story, a big project started in 1845 to fix my crumbling stone and make me beautiful again. That’s when I was given a new, tall spire that pointed proudly to the sky.

One day, something very sad happened. On April 15th, 2019, a terrible fire started, and it hurt my roof and my beautiful spire. My heart ached, and people all over the world cried with me. But then, a wonderful thing happened. From every corner of the world, people sent their love and help to make me better. Right now, careful workers are healing my stone walls and rebuilding my roof. I am a symbol of how people can work together to rebuild beautiful things. I am getting stronger every day, and I can't wait to open my doors and ring my bells for the whole world to hear once again.