Le Cavalier de Notre Dame
A history of the mysterious Notre Dame sarcophagus
Three years ago, the Notre-Dame Cathedral burned in a fire. During a restoration of the building, a mysterious sarcophagus was found one metre under the church’s floor. It was made of lead and shaped around the body of the deceased. There was no name plaque and no documents that would let us know who was buried there. His remains told us part of his story though. He was a young man, living as a wealthy noble in medieval France. He had to be an important figure to deserve a cathedral burial and embalming. His pelvic bones suggest that he had to be an experienced horseman. His skull was deformed from wearing some kind of a headdress as a child and his teeth was destroyed from a chronic illness. He probably suffered in his final days, before sickness took his life untimely. But someone close to his heart put a crown of flowers on his head before he was buried and some tiny leaves remained in his lead coffin, telling us what is probably the most important: he was loved, and he was missed, and he was mourned. Now, we can join his mourners - long gone and forgotten - and think for a moment about Le Cavalier de Notre-Dame.
Sources: the Guardian, the Smithsonian Magazine
Sources: the Guardian, the Smithsonian Magazine
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