We explained in our introductory newsletter that the “We’re a husband-and-wife team who fell in love in Europe and were lucky enough to live there for a few years, though we now live in the United States. On the night we learned of the fire at Notre Dame on 15 April 2019, we purchased the domain saveourshrines.org, not even sure what we would do with it, but knowing somehow that whatever it would become would somehow be something of a life’s work.”
In recent days we came across a small book in our public library called “Notre Dame – a Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals” by Ken Follett. He is the world-renowned author of The Pillars of the Earth, a 1989 blockbuster about the building of a fictional medieval cathedral. In this short book, an essay really, Follett describes his anguish at learning of the fire at Notre Dame, and provides a quick tour of Notre Dame through short chapters titled by the years significant events occurred in the life of the cathedral.
The chapter titled 2019 chronicles the day of the fire and its immediate aftermath. 1163 commemorates the year that Bishop Maurice de Sully decided to tear down the old Romanesque cathedral of Notre Dame and commence construction on a Gothic replacement. Work was slow. The high altar of the cathedral was not consecrated until 26 years later, and the entire cathedral took nearly 100 years to complete.
The chapter 1831 jumps ahead to the time of Victor Hugo, whose bestselling novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame revived public interest in the cathedral, which had fallen into disuse after the French Revolution. Popular demand forced the Paris government to select an architect, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who would supervise the renovation of the cathedral.
The chapter 1844 chronicles Viollet-le-Duc’s twenty-year quest to complete Notre Dame’s restoration. He designed the famous spire that collapsed during the 2019 fire. 1944 portrays the triumphant entry into Paris on August 26 of General Charles de Gaulle at the head of an Allied army that drove the Nazis out, and the Te Deum celebrated that evening in the main nave of Notre Dame.
The final chapter, 1989, references the year that Follett published The Pillars of the Earth, which introduced medieval cathedrals to a large secular audience. He concludes the book by writing that:
“I believe that a novel is successful to the extent that it touches the emotions of the reader. And something similar may be true of all works of art. It is certainly true of cathedrals. Our encounters with them are emotional. When we see them we are awestruck. When we walk around we are enraptured by their grace and light. When we sit quietly we are possessed by a sense of peace. And when one burns, we weep.”
Follett’s book was written between 19 and 26 April 2019, the short week after the Notre Dame fire.
It inspired us to investigate what has happened with the reconstruction of the cathedral since then.
This ABC News special and this Architectural Digest article provide a good overview of construction efforts thus far.
In July 2020, the chief architects responsible for the restoration plans received approval to “restore the cathedral to its ‘last complete, coherent and known’ state, as recommended in the 1964 Venice Charter, applicable in the cases when this state is perfectly documented and reconstruction is feasible. This includes rebuilding the spire identical to the one designed in the 19th Century by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Rebuilding efforts will also use original materials, like wood for the roofing. These restoration measures will ensure the authenticity, harmony and coherence of this masterpiece of Gothic architecture.”
The previous spire had featured massive statues of saints (seen in green in the image above). They had been removed for restoration only a few days before the 2019 fire, and are being “cleaned and restored by expert artisans in a workshop in Périgueux, a town located in the center of France.”
A non-profit organization called “Friends of Notre Dame de Paris” is responsible for collecting donations to finance the restoration of the cathedral. They hosted an event at the French Embassy in Washington DC on 15 April 2021 that provided an update on the progress and featured a video of the last organ concert played in Notre Dame before the fire – a rendition of Bolero.
As part of the restoration, private and public forests from around France have felled and donated over 1000 oaks, some of them nearly 200 years old and all meeting the requirements for straightness and length to replace the oak timber roof of the original cathedral. They will be stored in a low-humidity environment to dry out before the reconstruction phase begins in 2022.
The total restoration will take many years, but the French government is pushing hard to be able to reopen the cathedral by 26 July, 2024, when the next Summer Olympics begins in Paris. Here’s to their success!