The Burning of Notre-Dame

Notre-Dame de Paris is arguably the world’s most easily recognisable and well known cathedral. Having stood for almost a thousand years, the history of Notre-Dame is a rich and essential addition to the cultural knowledge of France, and is an integral part of its national identity.

Naturally, when I first saw it, I was unimpressed.

My twelve year old self really only knew three things about it, two of which I discovered upon arrival:

1. This was where Quasimodo lived.

2. The cathedral was much smaller than the movie made it seem.

3. The heat here was tolerable.

My family and I had been driving through Europe for the better part of a month at that point, having started in Italy where Granny and Grandpa Lostman had a small flat. We had driven around Italy, visiting our extended family before heading north into Switzerland and finally France. After the 40°C Italy had offered, I was ecstatic that France had a more temperate climate. Moreover, the monotonous and borderline nationalistic Ontario Social Studies curriculum hadn’t mentioned anything about the cathedral. My only source of context was the Disney adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

I was tired, moody, and generally under-educated in the history department.

Notre-Dame certainly dwarfed the buildings around it, but Disney had painted a picture of a behemoth, with towers that reached up past the clouds, monks that sang from dawn until dusk, and huge, beautiful stained glass windows awash with light and colour.

The building before me was small, the window less glass and more stone, and after having been dragged through hundreds of churches all summer, I no longer expected to hear monks singing.

Having seen the outside I was ready to call it a day and head on over to Euro-Disney, but my family insisted we go inside. While they waited in line my attention turned to the pigeons in the courtyard. I found myself wishing that I could feed them like I had in San Marco’s square.

When it was finally our turn, I was called back to the line, and that was when my perception shifted.

I could see now that what I had thought were small doors for a cathedral were massive slabs of wood and iron. They made me feel small; not a common sensation for a girl who was perpetually among the tallest and largest of her classmates.

The cathedral was dim when I entered, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I began to see the light from the chandeliers, low and gentle on the ancient stone. Grand pillars stood tall and strong, supporting arches that soared high above my head. Votive candle light danced upon the carved marble and gold within the chapels and the sun spilled in through each panel of stained glass, painting the glossy and foot-worn floors with every colour I could ever have imagine. Somewhere deep within it’s halls I thought I could hear voices raised in song.

I was enchanted.

The more I explored, the more I fell in love with Notre-Dame, and by the end of the visit it held a special place in my heart. I’m French by blood, and have always felt at home in France, but suddenly Notre-Dame had become the heart of that feeling.

I visited the cathedral once more over a decade later, this time with Arrow. I had insisted she see it, more for my sake than hers, truth be told. We sat a while together, listening to the echos of a thousand footfalls and the softness of whispered prayer. The stones themselves seemed to reverberate with a twinkling, almost mischievous acknowledgement. Notre-Dame remembered me, and it knew that I could sense it.

Though, I suppose, that could just be my imagination.

Either way, I was happy to see it again, to walk beneath it’s arches, bask in it’s glow, and light a few candles. When we were finished Arrow and I shared a delicious lunch in the a cafe next to the cathedral, all the while listening to the soundtrack from the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. We had run out of time to be able to climb the bell tower, something I had wanted to do, but we were blessed enough to hear the bells ringing for a moment while we ate. That whole morning was magical, and I was so grateful to be able to share one of my favourite places with one of my favourite people.

Of course when Aunt River told me she wanted to visit Notre-Dame, I was all for it. I had said to her that I was going to climb the towers, as I might not get another chance to do so, but that she needn’t climb with me if she didn’t want to. I had planned it all out, gotten the apps that I would need, and made deliberate time in the schedule for the climb as well as another visit inside the cathedral, to once more say hello to my old friend.

We were scheduled to leave for France on the 17th of April, 2019. Notre-Dame de Paris burned on the 15th.

It was that evening that I got the news. I had just sat down with a snack, prepped to watch reruns of the Great British Bake Off, pleased as punch with myself that short of a few dishes my flat was clean and everything was ready for Aunt River’s arrival the next day. A quick peek at my phone revealed a text from Dragon: “Notre-Dame is burning.”

I snorted and thought “What? No way.”

I thought she was kidding.

Then she sent the link.

The video was short, but clear. There was the cathedral, belching smoke, hollowed out with flame.

I was texting everyone I knew, sending the link, vainly hoping that someone would tell me that actually the video was a fake and I needed to calm myself. No one did, of course. More videos followed, firefighters doing their best to control the spread of the flames, Parisians looking on, weeping and heartbroken like I was, some so hurt that their pain turned to song.

By the time the spire collapsed I was in tears.

When Aunt River and I arrived in France we almost immediately set out to see the damage. We had wanted to explore Montmartre, the place we were staying, so our first stop after the little markets was Sacré-Coeur. The name Montmartre means ‘hill of the martyres’ or ‘martyre’s mountain’, and so naturally the Sacré-Coeur basilica is right at the top. It was a good vantage point to see the city and we, along with many hundreds of tourists that day, found Notre-Dame rather quickly.

Hope sparked when I realised the towers that I had wanted so badly to climb looked intact. Of course there could be internal damage, and I wouldn’t be able to climb them on this trip, but there was still a chance that they might be repaired and accessible in the future. I decided then that even if I was ninety by the time they finally re-opened the towers, then so help me I would drag my frail old behind up those steps if it was the last thing I did.

A few days later we went to see the cathedral up close. By then the police had cordoned off the surrounding blocks and were posted at each entrance. The only proper view of Notre-Dame was from across the Seine. Thousands of people surrounded us, their footsteps echoing through the streets, prayers were spoken aloud for a quick repair and a speedy recovery of the injured firefighters. The stones seemed to call out to the people who came to witness the destruction; “I am bowed,” they said “but I am not broken.”

But that could just be my imagination.