Artist unknown
Morning in Paris the city awakes
To the Bells of Notre Dame
The fisherman fishes
The baker man bakes
To the bells the of Notre Dame
To the big bells as loud as the thunder
To the little bells soft as a psalm
And some say the soul of the city’s the toll
Of the bells…
The bells of Notre Dame
~ Hunchback of Notre Dame
5,000 hand hewed oak trees made up her centuries old roof, hand leaded glass glowed in her rose windows. She stood through as a light in the darkness through some of the darkest times. She stood through first World War, and her bells rang. She stood through occupied France, and her bells brought hope. She stood through depression and starvation and loss and rebuilding and for eight hundred years her bells rang. For sorrow, for joy, for revolution…the bells of Our Lady of Notre Dame stood true to Paris, the beating heart of her very center.
And today…today we have nearly lost her.
Though it is Paris that stands in the streets, choking back tears and filling the smoke-thick air with hymns; it is not only Paris that grieves.
In situations like this it’s hard to find the words. It’s too big, and it’s too devastating. How can you grieve for a building? Let alone a building that you’ve never seen, never even had the chance to study.
Simple, because you grieve for history; you grieve for loss, and in situations like this…you grieve for humanity.
I am an art historian. If I could, I would make my living studying buildings like this. As one of my favourite tv characters says “architecture is just art we live in, why does no one get that?”. Notre Dame is not just a building, Notre Dame is art, and she is the soul of an entire city for a huge amount of people. When I think of the tremendous loss of history, the loss of culture, the gaping hole this leaves in people’s hearts…it breaks mine to pieces.
Over 500 firefighters have battled to save Our Lady; the roof was sacrificed, the spire toppled, but through the efforts of those who refused to give up they have saved the towers, they have saved the walls, they have saved her bones. But the upper rose windows are melted, the roof is gone, the spire is gone, there is nothing left of her famous interior ribbing. I will never stand under it, nor will anyone else, ever again. They will rebuild, it will heal, and this will become another incident in her long long story…but she will also never be the same.
Its true that there are bigger things at play on the world stage right now, there are still wars ongoing, innocents dying, and a million other things that could be deemed “more important” than the flames that erupted through that centuries old wood. But it says something that almost all news coverage cut immediately to the fire, that there has been little else covered on any network this whole day…
There is little left in the world that has stood witness to so much, that has watched over so many, meant so much to so many cultures…
Tragedy brings us together, it always has. Mourning reminds us that we are human.
For the first time in 800 years, her bells are silent…and it will be a long time before they ring out again…and that…that is important to stop and acknowledge.
Because that silence is loud.