Paris, between despair and solidarity | The r …

Page / 12 in France. From Paris. An immortal night of fire and laceration in the heart of a country. What had become immortal status over the centuries disappeared in a few hours with the fire that destroyed much of Notre Dame Cathedral. The building prevented the complete collapse for half an hour thanks to the intervention of firefighters who entered "the towers to extinguish the fire from within," said the head of the Ministry of the Interior. Interior, Laurent Nuñez. Experts estimate today that the price of catering would increase between 600 million euros and one billion. One of the specialists, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, wonders in the pages of the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur how they will get "the necessary means to recover quickly this sum". A famous French architect, Paul Chemetov, believes that it will take "between 10 and 20 years" of work to rebuild it. Of course, fire causes pain as deep as an extraordinary impulse of solidarity. Among the pledges made by ordinary citizens, the money promised by banks, companies of the country, multinationals and large fortunes was reached this Tuesday to the tune of 750 million euros of collections.

There is also a fairly precise balance of overall damage, what was protected and what was partially affected. The central altar is intact, halfway; the paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the Mays), which were on the walls of the great nave, do not ignite, but are affected by the waters. The three central doors of the west facade were saved: the portal of the Virgin, which traces the episode of the death of Mary, her ascent to heaven and her coronation Queen of Heaven; the portal of the judgment (year 1220) and the gate of Santa Ana (year 1200). However, it is not yet known if the three gigantic stained glbad windows of Notre-Dame (rose windows) built in the 13th century can be restored. The huge organ completed in the eighteenth century, its five keyboards and its 8,000 hits is still in an uncertain state, while awaiting a final badessment. In contrast, the central spire (year 1250) and the forest, that is, the entire roof (the frame) dating from 1160-1170 and considered a masterpiece of 39; medieval architecture, were consumed by the flames. Thanks to a human chain badembled in the middle of the disaster, several pieces of the treasure of Notre-Dame have been protected: the San Luis tunic, the crown, a fragment of the cross of Calvary, the nails used to nail Christ, both main towers of the building and the bells. There must have been 16 copper statues representing the 12 apostles and evangelists, but they dodged the fire because they had been dismantled a few days ago.

The main cause of the outbreak of the fire remains the suspicion of the fire brigade last night. There is restoration work done on the needle. The Paris prosecutor's office also stated that "there is no evidence" to date indicating that the fire had been intentionally lit. In any case, the Paris Prosecutor, Remi Heitz, stressed that it was "an involuntary destruction" while warning that the investigation would be "long and complex" . The main witnesses are up to now the 15 people who were in the cathedral when the fire broke out ten hours before seven in the afternoon. The origin of the fire is really a mystery. According to the director of the company in charge of the restoration (Le Bras Frères), Julien Le Bras, not only "the safety rules were respected", but also repeated that "when the fire was declared, it was not There was none of my employees instead. "

This Tuesday, at 18:50, the bells of all the churches of France rang in unison in homage to the devastated cathedral. The French Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, confirmed that "it is still not possible to eliminate all risks" (…), the essential has been preserved. "

This morning, from far or near, the landscape around Notre Dame Cathedral was dark. As the day before, thousands and thousands of people were stationed on the bridges and on the banks of the Seine, incredulous in the face of what looked like a calcined skeleton that lacked head, soul. "There is a hole in my heart and another in the Paris sky," he said. Page / 12 a neighbor of the tower. The woman, in her sixties, admits that she has never been a practitioner, but that the cathedral "looked like a beautiful bird still perched behind my window".

On the Puente de Arcole, neighbors, tourists, Parisians from other neighborhoods, Catholics, atheists, Muslims or Buddhists mingle in the same lament. A common voice emerged from this crowd: "It's like we've lost a mother." There is a sort of mysterious feeling blowing through this distressed and silent crowd. Everyone seems to see Our Lady not as an architectural building or relic, nor as a pile of stones wisely designed by a church at the most influential moment in its history, but as a being, a human person, a historical subject . In the flesh.

"It's the mother of Paris, the earthly vessel that has insinuated an immortal resonance with the sky, which has transmitted to us the intuition that certain human things can be eternal and unite men, no matter what they create," says Stephanie, a religious coming this morning in a suburban diocese. People come and go, even the very young. They stop at bridges, watch and think. They seem connected to the cathedral, beyond their faith or their indifference. Human life is ephemeral. The stones too. Father Laurent Lemoine writes in the newspaper Libération: "These stones speak of us". Notre Dame would not be what it is without the extraordinary narrative power of Victor Hugo, who extracted it from the hands of the Church for the people to appropriate it. . In this novel (Notre-Dame de Paris), Hugo writes: "On the facade of this ancient queen of our cathedrals, next to a wrinkle we always find a scar.Tempus edax, homo edacior.What I would like to translate as this: the time is blind, the man is stupid "(chapter 1, book 3).