Our Lady needs helping to her feet
YOU do not have to be Roman Catholic, Christian, or even religious, to feel a sense of profound loss at the devastation wrought on Notre Dame Cathedral.
Over more than eight centuries the Gothic cathedral has been a powerful cultural, emotional and iconic presence at the heart of one of the world’s great cities.
Like the Taj Mahal, Colosseum and Pyramids of Giza, the cathedral’s scale and beauty transcends national boundaries and occupies a place in the human collective consciousness.
Its history is so dense as to be impossible for anyone beyond experts to comprehend. It has stood firm through the rioting of Huguenots, the French revolution and two world wars, it has seen royalty crowned and popes honoured through the ages and harbours some of the most precious artefacts known to mankind.
The people of Paris recognised that on Monday night as flames tore through the timber-framed roof and it looked possible the walls of the structure might collapse.
They knelt and prayed, tears coursing down their faces as the spire toppled and the 12th century stained glass windows melted.
Naturally, the people of France will feel the loss most keenly. It will be years, if not decades, before reconstruction work can be completed and the national icon restored.
But this is not just a disaster for the French state and President Macron. It is far broader than that. Hundreds of millions have already been promised in private donations – including by the billionaire who funded the restoration of Victor Hugo house – and hundreds more will be needed in the years to come. That needs to come also from people around the world who want to see ‘Our Lady’ again grace the skyline of Paris.
It will be worth it. For while it is ‘just a building’ and there are very human tragedies taking place around the world which deserve the world’s compassion and its dollars, including the terrible famine in Yemen, there is also something compelling about the need to rebuild this link with the past.
Guernsey, with its French heritage and its own miniature Notre Dame, can play a small part in that and, in the process, repay some of the generosity offered by Paris in its support of Victor Hugo’s legacy.