Church of Notre-Dame of Dijon
The church's decorations also include two symbols of Dijon: the jacquemart (bell-striking automaton) and the owl.
Before the second half of the 12th century, the site of today's Notre-Dame was occupied by a simple chapel, the chapelle Sainte-Marie, which was outside the city walls.
For example, all the weight of the framing and the roof rests on pillars rather than flying buttresses, thereby allowing the maximum floor area for the interior.
The church was restored from 1865 to 1884, by the Parisian architect Jean Charles Laisné and not by Viollet-le-Duc as has sometimes been incorrectly written.
Several historians have noted the originality of the western façade, in that it is much more planar than usual in French Gothic architecture.
The lowest has three large arcades forming the entry into a porch whose vaults are supported by two rows of pillars.
Emphasising the top and bottom of these galleries are three string courses consisting of dummy (that is, not water-transporting) gargoyles alternating with metopes.
The façade is framed by a pair of corner buttresses, each surmounted by a turret enclosing a spiral staircase and topped with a conical roof.
According to the account of the monk Étienne de Bourbon, the original gargoyles were in place for only a short time: they were removed around 1240, following a fatal accident.
His colleagues organised the destruction of all the dummy gargoyles on the façade, except for one at the upper right corner that survived until the 1960s, when it was replaced.
The dummy gargoyles which today decorate the façade, and which represent human beings, animals and monsters, were made in 1880-1882, during the restoration of the church.
According to the archives, they were the work of seven Parisian sculptors: Chapot, Corbel, Geoffroy, Lagoule (also known as Delagoule), Pascal, Thiébault and Tournier.
The clock with its jacquemart sits on a campanile rising from the base of the unbuilt south tower of the western façade.
The automaton Jacquemart and the big bell were brought from Kortrijk (or Courtrai) in Belgium, after the looting of the town by the armies of Philip the Bold (Duke Philippe II of Burgundy) in 1382.
In that year he went on a campaign to bring aid to his father-in-law, the Count of Flanders, caught unprepared by a rebellion that extended from Lille to Kortrijk.
The duke's family and the people of Dijon pooled resources to place the clock and automaton on the western façade of Notre-Dame Church in 1383.
In the south apsidiole above an altar of goldsmithery is a wooden statue called Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir (Our Lady of Good Hope).
Originally, the sculpted clothes of the Virgin had a Romanesque polychrome decoration and her face was pale brown.
Dijon was occupied by the German army, which seemed to be intent on resisting the advance of the French troops.
On the initiative of some Dijon individuals, a tapestry commemorating the deliverances of 1513 and 1944, titled Terribilis, was commissioned from the artist and monk Dom Robert.
On the north side of the church is a chapel bordering on rue de la Chouette (Owl Street), a pedestrian way.
The owl became worn over the centuries because of a superstition that luck would accompany anyone who stroked the bird with their left hand while making a wish.
A mould of the owl, made in 1988 by an expert from the Louvre, served as a model for the repair completed in February 2001.
