As President Emmanuel Macron announced the beginning of lockdown for the whole country on March 16th, Jean-Louis Georgelin, the five-star general in charge of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, knew already that he would have to put the Gothic cathedral to sleep while France and the rest of the world fought coronavirus.
After almost a year racing against time to stabilise and consolidate the 850-year-old medieval structure, chief architect Philippe Villeneuve and his army of workers were only a few days from a crucial and perilous operation when they had to lay down their tools. The cutting of the 500 tonne scaffolding, which melted during the fire of 15 April 2019, would have to wait — probably for a few months.
For those in charge of the “building site of the century,” as Notre-Dame’s site has been branded by the French media, the weeks and months of inactivity ahead are going to be fraught with anguish. It has always been feared that the giant, metallic lacework of scaffolding could collapse onto the vaults and crash down into the nave. The weather forecast will be scrupulously analysed as storms and high winds could prove particularly damaging.
Still, since dawn broke in pink hues over the Seine on 16 April 2019, the day after the terrible fire, timid hope has prevailed in the heart of Paris as to Notre-Dame’s providential resilience, our ability to eventually mend her injuries and restore her to full glory. So many endearing, almost miraculous, details have contributed to restore our spirit since that day.
It started at 2am, when General Gallet, head of the Paris fire brigade, made another inspection of the cathedral. There were still six contained fires here and there, and it would take a couple of days to extinguish them all. “Inside the nave, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white patch among the charred debris lying on what remains of the altar,” he confided to me. It was in fact a large, beige, leather-bound book, open, its pages covered with thick dust. “As I got closer, intrigued, I could make out a word through the dust: espérance [hope].” The lectionary, a collection of scripture readings, had survived the destruction. It was open to the hope of resurrection, a few days ahead of Easter.
A few hours later, Parisians and the world started hearing how the stained glass windows, dating back to the thirteenth century, had survived the fire; how the bees of Notre-Dame, living on the roof of the sacristy, had been spotted going in and out of their hives; and how the Grand Organ had suffered only minor damage.
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SubscribePlease tell me that Norman Forster et al have been excluded.
Please !…..
May the heroic Parisian fire brigade have been a little too enthusiastic when douching the Nave roof with millions of gallons of water?
In 1836 Chartres Cathedral suffered a similar catastrophic fire in the Nave roof. As firefighting in that era consisted of little more than a watering can, the roof was allowed to burn out, thus resulting in very little damage to the Nave vault.
However in the case of Notre Dame, the vault was very badly damaged by water action and the impact of heavy, sodden, half burnt roof timbers. True, the fire had become a media spectacle, and ‘something had to be done’, but had that been confined to saving the West towers much damage to the famous vault could have been avoided.