Pîs è Moûse, tièsse è l’ êr, sint-Pô tchante nos bèlès-êrs
With his feet in the Meuse and his head in the air Saint Paul sings our favourite songs
In July 2021, the Liège region was hit by terrible floods. This was a traumatic experience for the residents of the ‘Fiery City’. The last flood of such magnitude occurred in the winter of 1925–26. Historically, Liège has often had to deal with the unpredictable nature of the river and its tributaries. Liège Cathedral bears several traces of this. Next to the main entrance, a small plaque commemorates the height reached by the ‘lès grandès-êwes’ of 1925–26 (literally ‘the big flood’, the name given to these floods in the Walloon language). Inside the cathedral, inscriptions on the right-hand column, just inside the entrance to the tower, indicate the water levels of 1571, 1643 and 1740.
Founded in the 10th century, St Paul’s Cathedral was completely rebuilt in the Gothic style between the 13th and 16th centuries. However, construction of the bell tower was not completed until 1810. Shortly before this, St Paul’s was elevated to cathedral status after the Concordat of 1801. It succeeded Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Lambert Cathedral, the demolition of which had been approved by a revolutionary assembly in Liège in 1793. The new cathedral inherited many of the old cathedral’s possessions, including the reliquary bust of St Lambert, which is on display in the cathedral’s treasury, and the carillon.