Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais, or Soissons Cathedral: one of the largest Gothic cathedrals of France, comparable in size to Notre-Dame de Paris and the cathedrals of Reims and Amiens

116 metres in length, against 130 for Notre-Dame de Paris;
height under the vault of the choir: 31, against 33.5 for Notre-Dame;
height of the tower: 66, against 69.

The church was wholly destroyed during the First World War; in 1914 it literally lay in ruins.

The French needed several years to restore the cathedral completely. Moreover, it was rebuilt from the same stone as the original of the 12th–14th centuries: the lutetian limestone, which became the principal material for building many edifices of Gothic France, Paris among them, was quarried from a colossal basin of quarries at whose centre Soissons stands, and several quarries of that basin were still being worked in the 20th century.