The Fire Exposed Something Nobody Knew Was Hiding Under Paris

Bright Side

When the fire tore through Notre-Dame, everyone focused on saving the cathedral, but no one expected what the flames would reveal underneath it. As workers cleared debris, they found hidden chambers, ancient tombs, and artifacts that had been sealed away for centuries. Some of the structures were so old they rewrote parts of the cathedral’s early history. The fire basically burned away the modern layers and exposed secrets no one knew were there. And in this video, you’ll see what's hiding under Paris and London.   Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00On April 15th, 2019, an unexpected fire almost destroyed one of the most famous buildings in the world, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

00:11There's famous buildings in the world. Fire that nearly destroyed it. The blaze that has been ravaging the cathedral.

00:17It spread quickly, burning through the tall spire and most of the roof. The fire began in the evening and was raging until the next morning.

00:25The flames destroyed much of the roof, but firefighters managed to save the main part of the cathedral and priceless pieces of art that were inside.

00:34But it was a narrow escape.

00:40Who could have known that it was a blessing in disguise, sort of?

00:45After the fire, a team of about 50 archaeologists started working at the ruins.

00:50They found some artifacts dating back over 2,000 years.

00:54One of the most interesting finds was two lead coffins, or sarcophagi.

01:00Scientists who studied it had to wear special clothes to protect them from lead when they were opening the finds.

01:06They found the bones of two wealthy men inside, but despite their riches, it looked like they had had tough lives.

01:14One of the men was easy to identify because there was an epitaph on the coffin.

01:19Only wealthy people could afford lead coffins in the 18th century, because they helped to keep the body in good condition.

01:27But the coffin was broken, and there were only some bones, some hair, and bits of clothing left inside.

01:34The scientists could tell from the bones that the man didn't move around much and had a health condition called gout.

01:40It affects joints, especially the knees, so he was sure to have a hard time walking.

01:46Money couldn't help him get rid of that, but he used it wisely, though.

01:50Antoine helped to pay for the cathedral's choir and ordered some paintings that are now in the Louvre Museum.

01:56The person in the second sarcophagus remained a mystery for a long time.

02:04But scientists say they might know who he was.

02:07When they first looked at the bones, they found that they belonged to a man who was between 25 and 40 years old.

02:14They also saw that he probably rode horses from an early age.

02:18This man's bones showed signs that he had long-lasting health problems, and most of his teeth were missing before he died.

02:25His skull was shaped differently, possibly because he wore a special headband as a kid.

02:31The researchers think that this man might be the French poet Joaquin du Belay, who lived between 1522 and 1560.

02:40He was a skilled horse rider and had lung problems.

02:43It's strange that, although he wasn't a church leader, he was buried in a cathedral and not in a side chapel near his uncle like his family wanted.

02:51Scientists think that either he was buried in a temporary spot, that later became permanent, or his coffin was moved after all his works had been published.

03:01Only a DNA test could establish if it was really Joaquin du Belay.

03:06So the mystery lives on for now.

03:08The fire did help to solve another Notre Dame mystery.

03:13How the thin walls support the vaulted ceiling at such a great height.

03:17When it was finished, the cathedral was the tallest building since the Great Pyramid, with a height of the vaults of 105 feet.

03:25That's about the height of a 10-story building.

03:27The fire of 2019 revealed a secret hiding inside the walls.

03:33Thousands of iron staples.

03:34Each of them is about 8 to 20 inches long, like the length of a ruler or a little longer, and they weigh 3 to 9 pounds.

03:43Before using iron, builders would put wooden rods between the walls to help keep everything steady.

03:48But wood is not as strong as iron and can break more easily.

03:52Iron is also easier to hide inside the walls, so it made the cathedral look like it was held up by magic.

03:58This idea of an iron skeleton was so good that other churches started using it too.

04:06By the way, we could have lost Notre Dame completely in the 19th century.

04:10The Parisians were tired of the Gothic style and signed a petition for Notre Dame's demolition.

04:17And that's when famous writer Victor Hugo, who loved architecture, saved the cathedral with the hunchback of Notre Dame.

04:24The novel became a hit, and people learned to appreciate the beautiful medieval construction all over again.

04:31And it was refurbished.

04:33A team of craftspeople fixed the existing features and added new elements, including a spire weighing 750 tons, copper statues, and the 56 Chimera.

04:44The gargoyles that became the symbols of Notre Dame weren't there from the start either.

04:51It took almost 200 years to finish the cathedral.

04:54And during that time, Gothic style came into fashion.

04:57So, by the time it was finished, Notre Dame had dozens of those mythical creatures made of limestone.

05:04They had a very practical function.

05:05To channel water away from the walls and foundations and save the building from erosion.

05:11In 1926, a book called The Mystery of the Cathedrals was published in Paris.

05:19It's said that the secrets of alchemy were hidden right on the walls of Notre Dame.

05:24Yes, that ancient form of magic that was mentioned in Harry Potter.

05:28Alchemy isn't a real science, but art experts now mostly agree that Notre Dame is an archemical text in stone.

05:36On the roof of one of Notre Dame's towers, called the North Tower, there is a picture carved in stone, not of any saint, but of an alchemist.

05:45He's wearing a special Phrygian hat.

05:48It shows that the person is part of Hermeticism, a group that studied secret knowledge.

05:53At the main entrance of the cathedral, there's a big door called the Portal of the Last Judgment.

05:59The author of the book said that this door has clues about the Philosopher's Stone, which alchemists believe could turn regular metals into gold and give people eternal life.

06:10On the central part of this door, there is a carving of a woman holding a ladder with nine steps.

06:16This is called the Ladder of the Philosopher.

06:19It's meant to show the nine steps or stages that an alchemist must go through to complete their work.

06:25All around the cathedral, there are more stone-based reliefs.

06:29One of them shows a man holding a shield with a symbol called a caduceus.

06:34It's a symbol of the deity Hermes, and it also represents mercury, a crucial element in alchemy.

06:40In the story of Hermes, this staff had the power to bring people back to life.

06:45There are also 12 scriptures of the apostles decorating the arches on the sides of the door.

06:51One of these apostles is pointing up at an angel, and the angel is pointing toward the left bank of the Seine River.

06:58Some people think that this might be a clue about where the Philosopher's Stone is hidden.

07:03An eagle carved on the same portal is also pointing in the same direction as the angel.

07:08The eagle also represents the power to change regular metal into gold.

07:13The main doors of Notre Dame are covered in iron designs that look complicated to make even now.

07:21So, they seemed almost impossible in the Middle Ages, when there were no fancy machines we have now.

07:27According to a legend, the iron work was made by a young metal worker named Biscournet.

07:32It took him months of demanding work, but finally, the iron designs were finished and put onto the doors of the cathedral.

07:39When the people saw it, they could hardly believe that a human could create something so beautiful.

07:46They said he must have made a deal with evil forces, and the swirling designs looked like the number 666.

07:53The fact that his name means two-horned only made things worse.

07:58Not long after the doors were installed, Biscournet passed away from all the stress and hard work.

08:03But for many people in Paris, it was only proof of the rumors.

08:07They believed that something really dark and otherworldly had come to take the man's soul as part of the deal he made to create the doors.

08:21London, a bustling city of contrast that never sleeps.

08:25Life is in full swing there, both on the surface, with almost 10 million people dwelling there, and underneath it.

08:32Now, don't get me wrong, London rent did go crazy over the last few years.

08:37But people haven't started living underground, at least not yet.

08:41But it's safe to say there are actually two Londons.

08:45You know, the one with Big Ben, the Tower of London, and Greenwich.

08:48And secret tunnels and forgotten spaces that lie deep beneath the bustling streets of the city have something to show you, too.

08:56It all starts with a white, unassuming door.

09:01To find it, you need to head to the eastbound platform of the Chancery Lane station on the London Underground.

09:07It doesn't seem to be hiding a big deal of secrets, but those who can open it know that behind it lies a maze of tunnels.

09:15Who knows, maybe this is the reason why Chancery Lane was closed a staggering 48 times from January to August 2023.

09:24And in 2022, it had 137 closures.

09:28That's more than a third of the entire year.

09:30They say the closures were due to all sorts of reasons, like staff shortages, naughty trespassers, and weather.

09:37But hey, it's a bit suspicious.

09:40So, the tunnels.

09:41They were built in the 1940s as shelters, later repurposed for cloak-and-dagger activities, storage of top-secret documents, and even telecom services.

09:52Rumor has it that the hotline between the most powerful states ran directly through these tunnels.

09:58These are called the Kingsway Exchange Tunnels, and they're located 130 feet below street level in central London, underneath High Holbrook.

10:07It used to be very secret-y.

10:08Ian Fleming, the guy who created James Bond and actually spent some time working at that place, got inspired by it and created the whole Q operations in the James Bond movies.

10:19The general post office took over in 1949, and by 1956, it turned into the place where the first transatlantic telephone cable terminated.

10:32Over the years, it was home to post office engineers and radio interference investigators.

10:38The place even had the deepest bar in the UK.

10:41It used to serve drinks for the big shots, but it's closed now.

10:45The thing is, by the 1990s, it had been mostly abandoned due to asbestos and other safety concerns.

10:53But you may get the chance to sip a drink at Britain's deepest licensed bar pretty soon.

10:59Here's the deal.

11:00In 2023, the London Tunnel swooped in to save the day.

11:04They bought the tunnels and have big plans to turn them into an interactive cultural experience for the public.

11:10With a projected opening in 2027, this place is set to become a hotspot for history buffs and curious adventurers alike.

11:19And let's not forget the cool entrances, from a secret shopfront on High Holborn to a mysterious goods lift on Furnival Street.

11:27Sadly, the entrance at Took's Court is no more.

11:30But hey, that just adds to the mystery, right?

11:33Now, if you don't feel like waiting for several years to visit the Neither London, there's another way of seeing the other side of the city.

11:42Now, there's a small downside to it, as the tour might be a little, you know, stinky.

11:47Do you know that beneath the streets of London, there is a maze of 1,200 miles of brick tunnels for raw sewage?

11:55That's a whole lot of pipes.

11:56And don't forget about the 80 miles of main sewers, big enough to pass for railway tunnels.

12:03Back in the day, when London was a hot spot for cholera outbreaks, the city was facing a real crisis.

12:10People were falling ill, and no one knew what to do.

12:13But the problem was that all the waste that Londoners produced went straight into the Thames, the main source of water in the city.

12:21So, all the cooking, cleaning, and other activities involving water were done with the Thames' terribly dirty water.

12:28Enter Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the man with a plan.

12:32This genius engineer designed a new sewage system that saved the day.

12:36No more sewage turning the Thames into a cesspool.

12:39Bazalgette's pumping stations were like something out of a steampunk novel.

12:43Massive and magnificent.

12:47Fast forward to today, and London's old sewer system is feeling the strain.

12:52With the number of people living in the city getting close to 10 million, it's time for an upgrade.

12:58That's where the Thames Tideway Tunnel comes in, a super sewer to the rescue.

13:03It'll be like a giant underground highway for waste, the construction of which was completed in March of the 2024th year.

13:11And while you can't really travel in the Victorian sewage, there is an underground world you can visit in London, but it's not for free.

13:21It won't cost you much, just as much as one metro ride.

13:25The London Underground is the pioneer of underground railways.

13:29Imagine, it's the 19th century, and they're building the Metropolitan Railway, the very first underground railway in the world.

13:38Sure thing, it used to look very different from those cozy carriages they have in London now.

13:43It all started way back in 1863 with wooden carriages and steam locomotives.

13:48In the 1900s, things really started heating up underground.

13:54The City and South London Railway kicked things off with electric trains, followed by the Waterloo and City Railway, Central London Railway, and Great Northern and City Railway.

14:06It was electrification mania down there.

14:08The Underground Electric Railway's company of London came onto the scene, bringing to life a bunch of tube lines, for example, the Bakerloo, Piccadilly, and Hampstead lines.

14:20Now, the London Underground is affectionately called the Tube because of its tube-shaped tunnels.

14:26It's not the only underground-related nickname the Londoners have.

14:29When the Central Line Railway was introduced in 1900, it was plainfully dubbed the Two-Penny Tube, because tickets only cost two pennies.

14:38And that fun nickname has been with us ever since, adding a little extra charm to our daily commute.

14:46More than 1 billion journeys are taken on the London Underground every year.

14:51That's over 5 million journeys each day.

14:54Surprisingly, the biggest part of the underground isn't actually underground.

14:58Out of the 270 stations, only 45% are below the surface.

15:04Oopsies.

15:05Turns out, it's not that neither London I was talking about.

15:09Eh, whatever.

15:10Do you know that the iconic tube map was inspired by a circuit board?

15:15Harry Beck, the designer, broke the map mold and created a cool and colorful diagram that still helps us navigate the underground today.

15:23The tube is quite royal as well.

15:26Queen Elizabeth II was the first royal to ride the tube in 1969 when she opened the Victoria Line.

15:33And she hopped on a few times since then.

15:37Every single day, people forget something on the tube.

15:40Some weird stuff has been left there over the years.

15:43A judge's wig, a prosthetic leg, even an urn of ashes.

15:48Oops.

15:49Did somebody forget Grandpa?

15:51Another fun fact is that penalty fares weren't a thing until 1994.

15:56Fair dodging used to be a common practice before that, but now those caught are fined 10 pounds on the spot.

16:05Also, there's a fake house on the underground track.

16:09It's hiding part of the track that was demolished back in 1868 when the district lined open.

16:14The neighbors weren't too happy about the gap, so they built a facade to match the rest of the houses on the street.

16:22And get this.

16:23The shortest distance between two adjacent stations is only 850 feet.

16:28It's between the Covengarten and Leicester Square on the Piccadilly Line,

16:32and it's a super quick journey that's still popular with visitors.

16:37The first escalator was introduced at Earl's Court in 1911.

16:41People were so scared of it that they didn't trust its safety.

16:45Legend has it that a man named William Bumper Harris, with a wooden leg,

16:50rode the escalator all day to prove it was safe.

16:53Pretty wild, huh?

16:55That's it for today.

16:56So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

17:01Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended