A 14th Century Statue of the Virgin and Child
This sculpture dates back to the mid-14th century. It originally came from the Chapel of Saint-Aignan, located in the former cloister of the canons on the Île de la Cité. In 1818, it was transferred to Notre-Dame to be placed on the trumeau of the Virgin’s portal, replacing the 13th-century Virgin destroyed in 1793. Then, in 1855, Viollet-le-Duc decided to move it to the southeast pillar of the cathedral transept.
The Statue of Notre Dame in Literature
The mouth contracts into an appearance of a pout and predicts tears. Perhaps, by simultaneously imprinting on the face of Notre Dame these two opposing sentiments, tranquility and fear, the sculptor wanted her to express both the joy of the Nativity and the foreseen sorrow of Calvary.
The Cathedral, J.-K. Huysmans, 1898
It was near this statue that the poet Paul Claudel converted during Vespers on Christmas 1886. In his work “My Conversion,” published in 1913, he refers to it:
I was standing in the crowd, near the second pillar at the entrance of the choir, to the right, by the sacristy. And then the event occurred that dominates my entire life. In an instant, my heart was touched, and I believed. I believed, with such a powerful adhesion, such an upliftment of my entire being, such a strong conviction, such certainty leaving no room for any doubt, that since then, all books, all reasonings, all the accidents of an agitated life, have not been able to shake my faith, nor, in truth, even touch it. I suddenly had the tearing feeling of innocence, the eternal childhood of God, an ineffable revelation.
Dominique Ponnau, Honorary General Curator of Heritage, who passed away in 2024, offered this meditation:
Beautiful statue of Our Lady; a symbolic statue of Notre-Dame de Paris; a symbol more famous than any other, except perhaps the Pietà at the back of the choir. This Notre-Dame, grand and graceful, stands tall, to the right, at the threshold of the choir. Our Lady of the Pietà sits at the axial ogive at the back, under the golden Cross, crowned by the white lightning of the Holy Spirit, forever tearing the darkness. The sorrowful Lady holds her dead Son on her knees, and with her outstretched arms, calls the silence of Heaven to witness. The welcoming Lady holds the same Son on her arm. But He is a child. The welcoming Lady is the Mother of a little Child. Later, when He is thirty, He will lie, dead, peacefully on His mother’s sorrow. Today, at the entrance of the choir, He is still the joyful, almost mischievous child of His young Mother. From the entrance to the back of the choir, between these two statues of Our Lady, stretch not only the times of the centuries but those of the intimate and the ultimate, those of the origins and the fulfillment. The endless duration of the mystery, within which unfolds the fleeting one of our lives promised to eternity. Our Lady of the Threshold is the one humbly prayed to here. She seems to have been here since the beginnings and to remain here forever. Yet she was not always here. She emerged from a sculptor’s chisel around the mid-14th century, intended, with many other companions, for the small church of Saint-Aignan, in the canons’ cloister, then situated on the north flank of the Cathedral. Saved from the anti-Christian savagery of the Terror, she was placed at the entrance of Notre-Dame, at the Virgin’s portal, replacing another statue destroyed in those same times of delirium. Finally, she was installed here, where once, at the entrance of the choir, an altar was dedicated to Our Lady. Thus, Our Lady of the Threshold traveled, over the centuries, from threshold to threshold, until she came, at the threshold of the choir, to form the prow of the sanctuary, whose stern is the image of the dead God, victorious forever over death. Our Lady of the Threshold, Our Lady of the prow of the vessel of our conversion, is an elegant and grave mother; a mother in a long robe, a long mantle, rhythmically flowing like the waves of a calm sea; a powerful mother, whose sway does not alter but discreetly suggests majesty; a virginal and royal mother, who holds the flower of the Kingdom of lilies in her right hand and whose beautiful face with abundant, wave-like hair is crowned. The Child of Our Lady playfully interacts with the top of His mother’s veil. But this play evokes a Mystery, that of the love of the spouse. This Child, who is still just a child, is already the Spouse; and the young mother who carries Him on her arm is Mother Church, who, in this child, carries the Spouse of the Church: her Son and her God. The sphere that this child holds is the virginal fruit of the paradise of love, symbolizing the reconciled cosmos under His scepter. Thus, the beautiful face of the Mother and that of her Son Spouse have no expression, as they are immersed in infinity. Do we need to think of all this when we come to pray to Our Lady of Paris, at the foot of her image? It suffices to look at her. To confide in her what we desire. To entrust her with what is good to confide in her. Who knows? Just as on a Christmas afternoon, when near her, at the singing of the Magnificat, Claudel converted suddenly and forever, perhaps each of us will convert, perhaps quietly, without even realizing it. Perhaps then, in front of her grave beauty and that of her Son, each of us will begin, or begin again, our journey from the Lady of the Threshold to the Lady of the Port, the ultimate port, whose eternal light will tear the night.
