A cursory history of revivals in older repertories and performance practices reveals a surprisingly consistent pattern. If there has been some revolutionary or otherwise ‘artificial’ break with the past in recent memory, there is almost inevitably a reaction that seeks to restore a past practice evoking some supposedly simpler or purer life. This phenomenon is central to the most spectacular musical revival of the nineteenth century, the restoration of an entire repertory, performance practice and lifestyle by the monks of Solesmes. Katherine Bergeron relates this to the wider sense of loss felt in France after the Revolution and throughout the turbulent twists and turns that ensued. Viollet-le-Duc's meticulous and imaginative restoration of Notre Dame – recreating every stage of the building's history in order to redress the violence of a single revolutionary era – was clearly symptomatic of the urge towards restoration. But it was soulless without the concomitant restoration of its liturgy and music, according to Prosper Guéranger, the founder of the Solesmes community. The musical restoration was thus integral to a wider culture of restoration, just as the latter was a reaction to a particular historical situation. There is also a pattern here which is immediately congruent with HIP in the late twentieth century, in which the restoration of an object (whether a building, instrument or forgotten musical text) is closely followed by a desire to revive its wider context and the practices with which it was originally associated.