but I must differ from you on one point: it was not built by peasants.
Even a century before the present Cathedral existed, Paris was a place of intellectual training. From 1170 there was already a cathedral school operating at the previous cathedral, Saint-Étienne. This corporation of teachers and students evolved in 1200 into the University of Paris.
Paris at the time of the Cathedral's construction (800 years ago) was also already a political capital and economic center, with the right bank of the Seine developed into a city of craftsmen and merchants around the great Market Hall.
The principal architects and contractors for the Cathedral were internationally known --- Jean de Chelles, Pierre Montreuil, Pierre de Chelles, and Jean Ravy --- and the construction work was done over a period of more than a century by thousands of skilled artisans, who brilliantly executed the spectacular arches, bell-tower and vaults, the flying-buttress-supported choir and nave, and the splendid, never-equalled stained glass windows: the North Rose window is the biggest glass window in the world---
--- each petal of which is a work of art---