Saving the Light at Chartres: How the Great Cathedral and Its Stained-Glass Treasures Were Rescued during World War II

Chartres Cathedral is one of the crown jewels of world art and architecture. Construction began a decade and a half before, and concluded a century before, Notre-Dame was completed. Chartres avoided major destruction during the anti-religion fervor of the French Revolution, and survived World War II—thanks to the efforts of French citizens and a single American soldier. The grand cathedral’s stained glass was first protected, in 1939 and 1940, by the French government and local supporters. Four years later, Col. Welborn Griffith Jr. stepped up. Elements within the US Army may have argued that the cathedral was expendable, since German snipers and spotters were presumed to be in its spires, but he personally inspected the cathedral and cleared it—and later that day was killed while patrolling north of the town. In a book in the spirit of The Monuments Men, Victor Pollak describes the efforts to save Chartres Cathedral.