Quaismodo would be impressed were he to return now to the cathedral that he inhabited as Victor Hugo’s beloved and maligned hunchback. He would immediately feel at home within the stone walls and wooden frames of the towers of Notre-Dame. Yet the cathedral has also changed and brightened since he knew it as Hugo’s fictional bellringer in the 15th century. There are new elements and much has been restored over the centuries, including its most recent restoration from the fire of April 15, 2019. But I imagine that Quasimodo would be enthralled as we were as we climbed the southern tower, examined gargoyles and chimeras, took in the extraordinary view, stood before the great bells, and descended through the northern tower.

As you would expect, the 360-degree view of Paris is well worth the effort of climbing 424 steps, despite the chicken-wire enclosure from which we take it all in: the city’s rooftops and monuments, church towers and spires, river and bridges, and the spire of Notre-Dame itself rising right before us.

The view over the city isn’t all that makes this visit worthwhile. There’s more to the new climbing route than the grand view. Quasimodo would be in awe to stand face to face, as we did, with the cathedral’s two great bells or bourdons, though these aren’t the ones that he so loved to ring: the 6-ton bourdon Marie, cast in 2012, which sounds a do, and the 13-ton bourdon Emmanuel, cast in 1686, which sounds a fa. The latter is France’s second largest bourdon after the 18-tonner known as La Savoyarde at Sacré Coeur Basilica, the church that we see on the hill to the north.

In bringing the hunchback to life on the page in 1831, Hugo also called for new life to be breathed into the then-dilapidated cathedral. Over the ensuing decades, appointed architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc honored that call by leading a massive restoration while also reimagining missing or degraded elements, taking liberties here and there. The tower route gives a close-up view of several of the 54 animal and demon chimeras that he and an assistant designed. Those that were heavily damaged during the fire of 2019 have recently been replaced with copies, as has Viollet-le-Duc’s spire of 1859. Even if none of these were known to Quasimodo, we are tempted to do as he did and “spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it.” But visitors today don’t have such luxury of such time when visiting the towers.

My own climbing group, comprised of journalists specialized in cultural heritage, had the enlightening pleasure of touring the towers in the company of Viollet-le-Duc’s current successor, Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect in charge of the restoration and reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris since the fire.

As we rose, he steered our eyes to various eras and elements of construction and major restoration. The current restoration work in response to the fire will likely continue through 2028, he said.

Even without Villeneuve’s insightful company, you’ll see along the way two major markers of his conceptual work. First, the massive oak spiral staircase, partially in double revolution, that Villeneuve designed for the passage from the second landing to the medieval stone staircase in the tower. Villeneuve’s staircase was shaped and puzzled together by an exceptional band of carpenters in Normandy. Throughout our visit, he sang praises to the dedicated, high-level artisans he’s worked with over the course of the restoration. As he points up to his work, a glimpse of the peak of the spire tatooed on his arm peeks out from beneath his sleeve.

Second, from the top of the south tower, you’ll look out to the real spire rising from the roof. It’s crowned by the flaming golden rooster—symbol of France and of the resurrected monument—that Villeneuve himself designed to replace the fallen, damaged rooster that has now been placed in one of the chapels inside the cathedral. On this national monument belong to the State, not the Church, the rooster crows above the Cross. View the full spire, accompanied by bells, on the 15-second video below.

On the way down, we glimpsed through windows “the forest” of oak beams, cut from throughout France, that form the roof beams. They replaced the medieval forest where the fire originated before consuming it into the night before the eyes of the world.

No more than 26 visitors are allowed to start the climb per 15-minute time slot. Contrast that with the lengthy queue down below leading to a shoulder-to-shoulder shuffle along the cathedral floor. Comparatively, a visit to the towers, culminating with the grand view (even if limited to 5 minutes), feels semi-private, nearly exclusive.

All that’s required is a timed ticket, to be reserved in advance, at a cost 16€ or free for under 18s and adults with the Paris Museum Paris or the Passion Monument pass. While you needn’t be a high-level athlete to climb the 424 steps to the top, do be aware of your own limitations before undertaking the endeavor. The winding staircases include some narrow passages less than 18-inches wide as well as low sections where someone over 5’10” or so is well advised to watch their head.

Along the way, there are levels to pause on, where one can learn a few historical tidbits on information panels about the towers and the bells. There is no elevator. There is no WC. Families are discouraged from bringing children under 6.

Timed ticket to the towers of Notre-Dame should be reserved only through the official site managed by France’s Center for Historical Monuments. Even free tickets require reservations.

From great heights in architectural history to great heights in culinary history

Epilogue: From great heights in architectural history we crossed over the Seine to great heights in culinary history as we pursued our conversation with Philippe Villeneuve at one of Paris’s other celebrated tours, La Tour d’Argent (The Silver Tower). That’s the famous gastronomic institution with the stunning view of the Notre-Dame’s chevet, the portion of the cathedral that radiates in an eastern flourish. Even with the crane and scaffolding that remain on that side of the cathedral, the view from the upper-floor restaurant is a sight for well-heeled, well-fed eyes. We, however, settled into the bar on the ground floor, where we were entertained and informed by Villeneuve’s insightful, cutting, wit-laden accounts of these past seven years of restoration—the wonder, the toil and the beauty of the work on the one hand and the egos, the politics and the back-stabbing on the other. Listening to his vision of architectural and decorative triumphs and failures and to his expression of emotional zeniths and nadirs, the current guardian of the temple seemed to embody both Viollet-le-Duc and Quasimodo. His thirst was quenched with water brought not by Esmeralda, however, but by a polished server from the Tour d’Argent.

As a further treat, André Terrail, owner of the Tour d’Argent made a gracious appearance. While the restaurant is heir to a history that begins with the creation of an elegant inn on this site in 1582, Terrail is heir to the celebrated restaurant that his grandfather, also named André Terrail, purchased in 1911. It was then a ground-floor restaurant, raised to the top in 1936. The Tour d’Argent has now developed into something of a “village,” to use the current Terrail’s term, with its restaurant, its rooftop and ground-floor bars, its grocer next door, its bakery across the street, and beside that its rotisserie. There’s even an apartment with the fab view that can be rented for the night (1800€).

Despite the Tour d’Argent’s visual affinity for Notre-Dame, I’m not promoting it here as the natural extension of a visit to the towers, however many Michelin stars its restaurant may or may not receive in a given year (in 2026 it has 1). Nevertheless, one’s got to go somewhere after the extraordinary experience of climbing to the top of the cathedral, and it might as well be somewhere that’s also earned its place in Paris history and lore, someplace accessible, if not to Quasimode, then perhaps to the likes of Victor Hugo, Viollet-le-Duc, Philippe Villeneuve, and yourself.

© 2026 by Gary Lee Kraut

Also read Notre-Dame: An Interview with Witnesses to a Dazzling Restoration

The post The Quasimodo Climb: Visiting the Towers of Notre-Dame de Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

It gives me a cheap thrill to think that you’d start reading this article in order to discover—with admiration or contempt—which towns and cities in France limit their cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration laws. You might be imaging a bistro where lawless lefties confront national thugs. Or a wine region where baguette-wielding winegrowers are protecting grape-picking Syrians and Somalis against soldiers in riot gear. Would you then be inclined to visit such a place? Or would you immediately despise it?

How exciting to think that a travel article of mine could be read with admiration or contempt. But at the risk of disappointing anyone, and of ruining my chances of this piece launching a lengthy Reddit thread, let’s have another look at that title.

Villes Sanctuaires en France, the network in question, translates as Sanctuary Cities in France. The words align. But the concept does not. There are no trumped-up stand-offs in these towns and cities. French authorities have indeed stepped up operations to net undocumented migrants and would-be immigrants who’ve overstayed their visa, including a few gently reminded post-Brexit Brits. But round-ups, deportation and resistance are unlikely to occur in the peaceable destinations in France’s Villes Sanctuaires network. What makes them like-minded is a different kind of sanctuary.

Here, sanctuaire refers to a sanctuary in the sense of a shrine, “a place in which devotion is paid to a saint or deity,” to quote Merriam-Webster. Villes Sanctuaires en France therefore brings together villages, towns and cities in France that have shrines—Catholic, at that—that can be visited by the general public.

But wait, wait!

Before clicking away because candle-lighting pilgrims are less Instagrammable than baguette-wielding winegrowers, let me tell you one of my favorite aspects of travel in the secular nation in France: You can just as easily visit these sanctuaries and shrines for the heck, the fun, or the creepiness of it—I do—as you can out of a sense of spirituality, hope or devotion—others do. You can visit them, as I do, out of pure curiosity, out of an in interest in history or architecture, and to observe how people visit shrines. Or don’t visit the shrine at all when in these sanctuary cities, because the municipalities mentioned here also pay tribute to the gods of beauty, construction, gastronomy, wine, nature, even meaning, whatever that may mean. And here’s the best part: respectful as we must be when visiting a shrine that doesn’t speak to us spiritually, we don’t have to fake adoration, because blasphemy is not a crime in France. Praise be!

For the 18 municipalities within the Villes Sanctuaires network, the shrine or sanctuary is only half the picture. The site’s pious handlers work in tandem with local tourist officials, who also seek to promote other aspects of tourism within the municipality and in the surrounding region. Each member-municipality tells a different story in which the spiritual retreat or Catholic pilgrimage site or otherwise sanctified structure can lead to explorations regarding other heritage sites, gastronomy, wine, hiking, and nature—or vice versa.

France today is a secular state not a Christian or Catholic country. Its culture is a mixed bag that doesn’t stem from the history of a once-dominant religion. Yet the history of Christian, particularly Catholic, dominance in France has left major physical markers. Among them, a fascinating, photogenic and/or curious variety of heritage sites that the traveler is invited to encounter. Christianity’s religious and political history in France also includes a record of harms, dangers and abuses that are also worth examining. Thankfully, one is no longer forced to or expected to honor religiously inspired historical sites or the shrines of these sanctuary cities in specific ways, yet all are accessible to visitors whatever one’s views. By contrast, travelers are highly unlikely to visit a synagogue or mosque or temple if they don’t identify with the associated religion. Even travelers who do identify rarely visit those, whereas the vast majority of non-Catholics visitors to France will enter a church. Think Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.

Pilgrims and wayfarers, reverent and irreverent

For the purposes of this article, let’s use both portions of Merriam-Webster’s definition of a pilgrim: 1: one who journeys in foreign lands: wayfarer. 2: one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee.

The Villes Sanctuaires en France network was created in 1994, not as a direct promotional tool so much as a way for municipal tourist officials and overseers of shrines and sanctuaries to exchange information and learn from each other regarding the welcoming of religious and non-religious pilgrims. Only recently, in December 2025, did the association hold its first organized press workshop.

The event took place in Paris at the religious guest house attached to Sacré Coeur Basilica in Montmartre. Entrance to the hotel is from behind the basilica on a street named for the Chevalier de la Barre. The chevalier was a nobleman who was arrested then tortured and executed in 1766, at the age of 20, because he vandalized a wooden crucifix and failed to take his hat off when a religious procession went by, along with other impious, blasphemous acts. He immediately came to be seen as a secular martyr for the Enlightenment against the dangers of religious intolerance of Church and its bedmate State. Laws today sanction those who incite hate and violence, whether with respect to religion or other matters, while the Chevalier de la Barre remains a symbol of the right to irreverence with respect to something some consider sacred.

It isn’t at all ironic that the street near the Catholic holy site is named after the ill-fated young fellow. Instead, the street was baptized in honor of la Barre at a time when Sacré Coeur was under construction, during the political tug-of-war between Catholic and anticlerical forces in France. While the church rose with one vision of French society, the naming of the street and a statue to la Barre (located in what is now a dog park nearby) were intentional reminders of changing social priorities.

Together, the street and the church, the young nobleman and the devout pilgrim, the charming grey cobblestones and the massive white dome, coexist today as attractive reminders of how travelers—whatever kind of pilgrim they may be, whatever reverent or irreverent thoughts they may have—can experience, learn from and share it all.

The Sanctuary Cities network naturally plays the spiritual card in promoting tourism—unless it’s the tourist card in promoting spirituality—but these villages, towns and cities needn’t be seen as religious destinations alone. Whether you consider yourself a religious pilgrim or a wayfarer in a foreign land, or both at once, or sometimes one, sometimes another; whether you’re a theist (aficionado of a god that does or doesn’t act on human affairs) or a nontheist; whether you go in for blasphemy, heresy, dogma, or the smell of incense; whether you consider yourself spiritual or not; whether you wish that this article had been about deportation or resistance, now that you’ve come this far in, stay with me as I present the 18 current members of the network of Sanctuary Cities in France.

Municipalities in the Sanctuary Cities network vary from world-renown destinations to little-known village.

Among the most famous of these Sanctuary Cities is Lourdes, a town of 13,800 whose shrines attract 3 million visitors per year. Lourdes is primarily known as a spiritual destination relative to sainted Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879), who is said to have had 18 sightings of Mary from February to July 1858. Personally, I’ve little curiosity about Bernadette herself, but the spirit moves me to visit Lourdes soon so as to witness the Bernadette phenomenon up close and because Lourdes makes for an excellent starting point for exploration in the Pyrenees. There’s a visitable fortress just above the town. A funicular goes to the summit of the Pic du Jer. Further from town, another funicular goes to the even more impressive summit of the Pic du Midi, and there are numerous trails for hiking expeditions in the region. (Stay tuned for my 2026 Lourdes article.)

The photogenic tidal island of Mont Saint Michel is another major destination among these Sanctuary Cities.

While you don’t need to carry an all-knowing deity in your thoughts to be curious about the place, I encourage all travels to delve into the fascinating religious, architectural, technological and geopolitical history of the site, whether through reading or by hiring a specialized local guide, even if only to understand the successive eras of construction on the mount, culminating with the 13th-century portion known as “the Marvel.” I suspect that, unlike visitors to Lourdes, only a small percentage of the millions who come each year to Mont Saint Michel is aware that the mount maintains an active Catholic community—the men and women of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem. In the village and hard to spot among the souvenir shops and pricey omelets, the House of Pilgrims is a sanctuary for visitors who seek churchly hospitality.

Nevers, population 33,000, is located on the edge of two major travel and touring routes and receives relatively few foreign visitors. It’s on the inner edge Burgundy but without vineyards to draw wine travelers, and it’s the starting point for the 415-mile Loire by Bike route but cyclists largely pedal along paths further downstream. Religious pilgrims, however, know Nevers as the place to marvel at the body of Bernadette of Lourdes. Why aren’t her remains in Lourdes to greet the 3 million visitors there? Because Bernadette of Lourdes joined the Sisters of Charity and lived her short life as a nun in Nevers, where she died at the age of 35. Personally, I’m not planning a trip to Nevers just for that, though I do soon expect to take in the embalmed sight. I’ll also check out the Ducal Palace, have a peek in at the earthenware museum, find a potter to visit, and seek out a lively bistro or good restaurant. I enjoy the sense of discovery of exploring a bypassed town with an eclectic mix of offerings with an eye to encountering something or someone that sparks my interest. (Again, stay tuned for an upcoming article.)

Further south in Burgundy, Paray-le-Monial’s Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart) Basilica represents Romanesque architectural splendor to Catholic and non-Catholic visitors alike. The former may specifically come to embrace their sense of the Sacred Heart. It was in this town that Margaret-Marie Alacoque claimed to have had three visitations from Jesus from 1673 to 1675, revealing his heart and its meaning to her on the third. The basilica therefore welcomes a significant influx of religious pilgrims. They may or may not also be gastronomic pilgrims, interested in Charolais beef. Charolais is common in much of France but the massive Charolais breed of cattle has its origins in this region and is named for the town of Charolles, eight miles east.

Spirituality needn’t be the main draw of a town or city in the sanctuary network. Wine can be the magnet, at least it is for me when I think of Cahors, which stands out in the wine world as the primary home for malbec in France. Whether you prefer your wine blended, blessed or 100% malbec, or don’t drink at all, no visitor venturing this deep into the country would skip the city’s key heritage sight: the 900-year-old Saint Etienne (Saint Stephen) Cathedral. Within the bowels of the cathedral awaits the Holy Headdress, venerated as the supposed head covering placed on Jesus as he was wrapped in a shroud for burial. Some will stand before it in awe and adoration. Others will raise an eyebrow, shake their head, and think “Oh, the things that people will believe.” But all visitors check it out. Beyond the malbec, the cathedral and the old town, it is the House of Pilgrims at the convent of Vaylats that gives Cahors sanctuary status and provides hospitality for hikers on the Way of Saint James of Compostela.

Sometimes the distinction between religious and non-religious pilgrim-tourists is blurred because they’re all following the same path. That’s the case at Rocamadour, one of the most visually stunning of these Villes Sanctuaires due to way the village hugs the canyon wall. Rocamodour is just over an hour’s drive north of Cahors or east of Sarlat. Visitors of all stripe climb the 216 steps to the sanctuary, then gaze upon the Black Virgin, a little statue with a large reputation.

Brive-la-Gaillarde, just over an hour’s drive north of Rocamadour, is better known for its rugby team than for its caves of Saint Anthony of Padua. But there it is, a sanctuary dedicated to the patron saint of all things lost and found.

Many trains to Bayeux and the D-Day Landing Zone of Normandy stop in the sanctuary town of Lisieux. Looking out the window as the train approaches the station, you see an immense basilica on the hill, its architecture inspired by Paris’s Sacré Coeur. The basilica honors Thérèse Martin (1873-1897), better known as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. I’m not suggesting that any but the most Teresian travelers take time from their brief tour of the Landing Zone to visit Lisieux, but it’s nice to know what you’re looking at as you pass by on the train.

Teresa’s sainthood marks much of the lower half of Normandy. Her devout parents, the canonized couple Louis and Zélie Martin, lived in Alençon, and their shrine there brings that town into the fold of Sanctuary Cities. Alençon is, however, better known in knitting circles for its lace-making history, as presented in its Lace Museum.

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer’s annual pilgrimage in May attracts Romani from throughout Europe and tourists from far and wide into the Camargue Regional Park. Yet for most visitors, it’s the natural sensations of its marshes and bottomlands that set the Camargue apart along the Mediterranean.

Most foreign travelers would be surprised to learn that the Loire River, which evokes royal chateaux and easy-going biking along its east-west flow, starts deep in an off-track area of southern France and builds up strength on a northerly flow. Le Puy-en-Velay, population 19,000, in the Haute-Loire (Upper Loire) department, is the first city along the river’s course. Its geographical location and the presence of an ancient shrine to Mary earned it a major place on the map for medieval pilgrims arriving from the east and northeast on the Way of Saint James. Le Puy’s Notre-Dame Cathedral, its monumental statue of Notre-Dame de France, and its nearby volcanic chimney topped with a chapel round out its major Christian sights. But a foreign traveler is unlikely to come here unless interested in exploring the striking natural surroundings of this former volcanic region.

The sanctuary village of Souvigny also has a remarkable Romanesque church, along with the history of the first house of Bourbon—Bourbon as in future kings of France not corn whiskey. Souvigny is a 15-minute drive from the city of Moulins, home to the National Costume Center.

Then there are a handful of more obscure sanctuary villages and towns in the network: Lalouvesc, a remote village in Ardèche; Ars-sur-Formans, which sits quietly between the Beaujolais vineyards and Lyon; Cotignac in the backcountry of Provence; Sainte-Anne-d’Auray in Brittany; Vendeville near the northern tip of France, and La Salette, at nearly 6000 feet in the Alps. Non-religious pilgrims visiting the sanctuaries and shrines there will especially find the opportunity to commune with nature in various shapes and forms in the surrounding area.

See the official site for this network of sanctuary cities for more information about the shrines, sanctuaries, and points of interest of all kinds in and near these villages, towns and cities.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Traveler’s Guide to Sanctuary Cities in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

If you look closely, very closely, at the masonry above the arch of the Gate of the Dead at the Roman amphitheater in Saintes, you can make out a fine line that indicates where a mason stopped his work for the day.

Unless a sign is eventually placed there, you won’t find the exact spot on your own. And even when Karine Robin, head of the archeology department for Charente-Maritime, points to and explains her discovery, I can’t be sure if I’m seeing the line or imagining it through her enthused description. I lean closer. Yes, there it is—eureka!—a trace of thrilling triviality within a Roman ruin in a bypassed town, shown by a proud and passionate archeologist. Astounding!

The minutia of the archeologist’s discovery and her vivid explanation light in my mind a spark that begins to illuminate the course of 2000 years of history, from a mason’s day in about 40 AD to the crowds who filled the amphitheater over the next four centuries or so, then the crumbling of the Roman Empire and the gradual transformation, dismantling and degradation of the amphitheater until archeologist began to study the partially buried structure in the 19th-century and now its fine-comb examination by Karine Robin and her team who have been investigating the site and restoring its remnants along with the National Institute for Preventive Archeological Research (Inrap).

That something so seemingly inconsequential in my own life—evidence of a Gallo-Roman mason leaving work for the day—should suddenly make a 3½-hour train ride from Paris feel worthwhile is in itself extraordinary. Often, the greatest reward of sightseeing isn’t a sight itself but the sparks that light in the mind when an informed person enthusiastically gives it context and teaches you how to look at it.

Would you go out of your way for that?

Probably not. You’ve already been the Colosseum in Rome, you say—impressive indeed. And to Arles and to Nimes, you say—yes, wonderful towns to visit. Me, too.

The Arena (Amphitheater)

Then what more can you find here when in fact far less remains of the cavea or seating area and far less of those wide passages that allowed for crowds to enter and exit? I scan the ruin. I listen to our guides. Those passages, we’re told, are called vomitories. Hearing that, a new spark illuminates the connection between the Latin spoken by Roman masons and emperors and the food poisoning I may have gotten from a 3-star Michelin restaurant several years ago. Like Helen Keller by the water pump and the tree, I want to the learn names of things. Those arched passageways to either end of the amphitheater are evocatively called the Gate of the Living (Porte des Vivants), on the eastern side, opening toward the city, and the Gate of the Dead (Porte des Morts), opening to the then-countryside to the west. It’s on the occasion of the restoration of the latter that Karine Robin has discerned the mason’s fine line. No, it isn’t only men who are intrigued by the history of the Roman Empire, though it could be that men are more susceptible to Roman sparks.

We’re visiting what is locally referred to as “the arena” but is technically speaking an amphitheater, i.e. a theater with seating on both sides. Not that I’ve become a connoisseur of Roman architecture in the past hour, but the traveler learns such things on site, and more: about the amphitheater’s religious, political and entertainment functions for a location population invited to witness wild animals in a hunting show in the morning, executions at noon, gladiator fights in the afternoon.

And there they are, on the theater floor today—gladiators! We go over to speak with them—well, the men in our group do. They aren’t real gladiators but strong and knowledgeable reenactors who perform here in summer. They present their shields and daggers, their metal helmets and leather padding.

There are no combats this afternoon, but we’re drawn in by their accounts of the lives of the trained fighters of ancient Rome. Today’s friendly gladiators now take evident pleasure in deflating our greatest sense of a gladiator fight: that it all ended with a life-saving thumbs-up or a deadly thumbs-down. We could have Googled “Roman hand signals” for details, but learning from reenactors who share their passion and knowledge right here on the theater floor makes think that I might have been a bit overdramatic yesterday when I complained to a friend about taking the 6:48am train from Paris.

Then, just as I’m enthralled by an account of the glamorous and dangerous life of a hall-of-fame gladiator, we’re told that (Christian) Emperor Honorius prohibited gladiator combat in the year 404.

I look around at the grassy, rocky bowl that surrounds us, not to imagine the last of the cheering crowds but take in the pleasing view of sheep grazing on slopes that once held seating for up to 15,000 spectators, the town’s entire populations, all welcome, seated according to social status. And I sense the end of this amphitheater as a venue for the thrill of executed justice and violent entertainment. I sense the dismantling of temples, the surrounding of the city by ramparts, the rise of the Visigoths, the Sack of Rome.

Would you go out of your way for that?

I didn’t think so. But if there are remnants of a Roman amphitheater there’s got to be more to see in Saintes.

The name Saintes might lead you to imagine that the presence of a mother lode of Christian relics or a history of pious devotion, perhaps some memorable martyrdom. Though a certain Saint Eutropius was (for some, is) indeed venerated here as an early Christian martyr (I’ll get to him), Saintes is instead derived from the name of the Celtic tribe that inhabited the region at the time of the Roman invasion with Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars and far before the evangelization of Gaul. They were the Santoni. Under Roman rule, the developing town was given the name Mediolanum, or Mediolanum Santonum to add the term for its inhabitants. (Similarly, the Parisii were the pre-Roman inhabitants of what would become Paris, a town the Romans called Lutetia or Lutetia Parisiorum.)

Mediolanum/Saintes developed just beyond a sharp bend in the Charente River. The town is now somewhat removed from major routes through France, hence the 3½ train from Paris with a change of trains at Angoulême. On the map below, you have to zoom in above and Bordeaux to locate Saintes along the Charente between Cognac, 17 miles to the east, and Rochefort, 24 miles northwest.

Two thousand years ago, however, Mediolanum held a proud place on the map of Gaul as capital of the large province of Aquitaine. Here, the east-west Via Agrippa, the route coming from Ludgunum (now Lyon), met the north-south route through Aquitaine, a sign of the town’s geographical and political importance.

The amphitheater is testimony to the town’s prominence early in the Roman colonization of Gaul. Completed in about 40 AD and dedicated to Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), who had been born in Lugdunum, its construction predates that of the Colosseum of Rome by about 30 years and that of the amphitheaters of Arles and Nimes by 50 and 60 years respectively.

Bordeaux would take over as the capital of Roman Aquitaine in the 2nd century, leaving Mediolanum with a secondary role, then less so as centuries passed. Saintes is now a part of the vast region of New Aquitaine, whose capital is Bordeaux. Its current population is only 27,000 (56,000 with the metropolitan area), less than double what it was 2000 years ago. Its inhabitants are called the Saintais and Santaises.

The Arch of Germanicus

Even before the construction of the amphitheater, Mediolanum bore the proud markers of a Roman town.

Its first aqueduct was already supplying water, and a second would soon be added to provide a more abundant supply to the growing provincial capital. Remnants of these can be seen at their sources in the countryside 6-7 miles outside of town. Fascinating as they may be, it’s likely that only a diehard explorer of antiquity with a vehicle will inquire the route at the tourist office to seek them out.

Every visitor to Saintes, however, takes a walk along the river to see the Arch of Germanicus, built about 18-19AD. (Also, the tourist office is close by.) Originally constructed at the point of arrival of the Via Agrippa, the arch was the entrance gate to the bridge crossing the Charente into the heart of Mediolanum. The double-arch gate honors Emperor Tiberius, his son Druus and his adoptive son Germanicus, yet Germanicus gets sole reverence today since his name is the most legible of those inscribed along the arch’s crown.

In 1843, the arch was displaced 150 yards from its original position as the bridge and waterfront were modified. So it now stands isolated and out of context, diminishing some of its aura. Nevertheless, as we stand by the river with a full view of the arch and learn from Cécile Trébuchet, a dynamic local guide, how to interpret its blocks and inscriptions, visiting Saintes feels less like a detour and more like an arrival. It also inspires a wiki read about Tiberius and the imperial gang of 2000 years ago that later sends me down the rabbit hole of Roman history from which I eventually emerge with the sense that the same gang is at it today.

A visit to the town’s Archeology Museum, right nearby, seems like the natural next step. Unless it’s mealtime, in which case consider the restaurant barge La Batiâ that’s docked by the arch.

Would you go out of your way for that?

Unlikely. Maybe a medieval monument or two will tilt the balance. Three medieval bell towers stand out above the pale red tile roofs of Saintes, those of the Abbaye aux Dames (the Ladies’ Abbey), of Saint Pierre (St. Peter) Cathedral and of Saint Eutrope (Eutropius) Basilica.

The Tomb and Crypt of Saint Eutropius

Saintes’s most unique medieval sight is the basilica’s crypt, a subterranean church containing the tomb on the early Christian missionary and lapidated martyr Saint Eutropius. A site of devotion since the mid-500s, the presence of the saint’s tomb later earned Saintes a stop on the Way of Saint James to Compostella, Spain. The tomb now lies in dramatic simplicity in the heart of a vast crypt of the 11th century. The light, the chill and the musty smell there create a spectacular and eerie atmosphere that flirts between virtuous intimacy and the possibility of eternal damnation, as the most titillating flirts do. It’s open to the public, if you dare enter the gaping mouth of the entrance to the great below. The leafy decorations of its column capitals provide touches of charm that partially alleviate the sense that the end is nigh. But be forewarned: Stand inside alone for more than a few minutes and you’ll either fall to your knees in a desperate plea to be saved or run out in a panic to save yourself. I chose the latter.

The Ladies’ Abbey: Hotel, Church, Music Conservatory

You’d be hard pressed to find a tourist trap in Saintes considering how few foreign tourists venture this way. That point alone can be the attraction as an overnight for the wayward traveler, or for someone suddenly struck with wanderlust, or for a cyclist on the easy-going Rochefort-Cognac leg of the Flow Vélo route. Consider then a peaceful night at the Abbey aux Dames, the Ladies’ Abbey, which is also a highlight for the day visitor.

Founded in 1047, the Ladies’ Abbey, is a successful contemporary example of ways in which heritage sights can be rehabilitated to the benefit of local life, local economy, culture, and visitors. While one portion of the complex is now used for social housing, the central portion houses a music conservatory, an auditorium and a hotel, along with the abbey church. The complex also has an information desk, a boutique, a café and a strange playable musical tent of sorts.

The abbey church remains the medieval centerpiece. Though the Benedictines nuns were sent packing during the Revolution, the Romanesque church was later reconsecrated and continues to hold Catholic service. Fires in 1608 and 1648 led to the rebuilding of the convent buildings in the 17th century. From the Revolution until just after the First World War, the site served as military barracks, housing about 2000 men. Audio guides are available to explore the thousand-year history of the site and to appreciate its recent musical vocation.

In 1972, the tired complex was given new life when it became the venue for a Classical music festival. The former abbey now hosts musical programs throughout the year, culminating in the annual Festival de Saintes. In 2025, nearly 12,000 people attended the 29 concerts performed over 8 days in July at the abbey and elsewhere in Saintes.

Situated between the station and the river, the abbey hotel is conveniently situated for lodging train travelers and bikers.

The 33 bedrooms occupy the former cells of nuns along a hallway on the second floor of the main convent building. Only several of the rooms have en suite bathrooms. Most share bathrooms on the hallway (bathrobes and slippers are provided). That will be off-putting for some, but will add a sense of community to others.

The hotel is not for ladies only, and this is not roughing it. The rooms are comfortable. The architecture itself is the primary décor. The quiet of the immediate surroundings, the history of the place, and the arched stone-and-brick ceiling of the bedrooms inspire guests to sleep the sleep of nuns or soldiers or Classical musicians or tired tourists, depending on what dreams, nightmares or fantasies overcome you. About 100€ per room per night is a reasonable price to find out. The complex is open year-round, however the hotel section primarily operates April to September. The rest of the year it opens only for groups reserving 10 rooms or more.

Other nice lodging options for train travelers or cyclists include Hotel des Messageries, a 3-star by the river and the town center, and La Porte Rouge – The Red Door Inn, a charming B&B in the center. Those traveling by car may also consider Relais du Bois Saint Georges, a 4-star on the edge of town.

The Dupuy-Mestreau Museum

It’s from a side street that we enter this handsome private mansion of the 18th century that otherwise faces the Charente River. In the 19th century the mansion was purchased by Abel Mestreau (1855-1939), a wealthy Cognac merchant and a collector of regional folklore, curiosities and apparently whatever struck his fantasy. He never actually lived here. The Dupuy-Museum Museum is so scarcely visited and the discolored collection is so eclectic that that itself may appeal to those who like feeling that they’ve left main-road travelers way behind.

As much as I appreciate having our guide explain the interest of the various costumes, clothing, regional headdresses (coiffes), paintings, regional artefacts, furnishings, knick-knacks, pottery, jewelry, and what-the-heck-is-thats, I also enjoy wandering around on my own so as to make up stories about various objects, e.g. this gal with the racket; I call her the goddess of tennis. Not unlike visiting Saint Eutropius’s crypt, eclectic regional museums such as this inspire in me a mix of intense curiosity and a desire to flee.

Curiosity got the better of us all. We hung around long enough to see the royalist treasure among the footwear display: a cute pair of slipper-shoes said to have been worn by deposed king Louis XVI during his imprisonment, as he awaited the trial that would eventually lead to his execution. I’m glad I saw them, because that gives me a reason to tell you a Saintes fun fact: Saintes was the birthplace in 1738 of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin whose name lives on in the term for the machine for humane and expedient execution that he championed: the guillotine. An etching of the fellow is among the collection.

Would I advise you to go out of you way for that or does this sound like a far way to go for yet another quaint small town in France?

Still wondering.

Cognac Grosperrin

After all of the vestiges and artefacts that we’ve encountered through the day, we air out our dusty minds with a stroll along the river. It leads us to the offices and cellars of Saintes’s last remaining Cognac broker. As we approach, we imagine barges docked nearby to load casks for shipping when these cellars were first operational in 1851.

Cognac, the town that gave its name to the world-renown double-distilled brandy, is 17 miles upriver, to the east, yet Saintes lies within the cognac grape-growing zone. While most of the major players in the Cognac market are in and around Cognac, the Grosperrin Cognac house, located here, is increasingly known to connoisseurs. Since 1999, first under Jean Grosperrin then, beginning in 2004, under his son Guilhem, Cognac Grosperrin has made a name for itself by purchasing from a variety of sources single-terroir and vintage Cognacs in oak casks, which it then continues to age before bottling and selling at what it deems the appropriate time.

The main cellar, with its old casks and demijohns, most of which are dated and authenticated with official sealing, is an impressive sight in its own right when one thinks of the history (your own, France’s, the world’s) that the dates represent. Then comes the tasting.

I will admit here that among French brandies I never had a taste for Cognac, finding it too harsh for my palate. Before now, that is. Turns out that my impression was based on middling or young Cognacs, the kind best reserved for cocktails or give-me-anything-that-burns digestives. When well-selected fruit is well-distilled and well-aged, it’s an entirely different experience. The same can be said for Calvados (apple) and Armagnac (grape), the two other internationally known French brandies, but I’ve generally been more forgiving when sipping middling versions of those, on the one hand because I’m a frequent visitor to the Calvados region of Normandy and accept that apple brandy is a unpretentious spirit, and on the other because the Armagnac-producing region of southwest France is so enchantingly rural. One reason that I didn’t write about the town of Cognac after a quick visit there ten years ago was that I couldn’t quite wrap my tongue around its namesake brandy. I now realize that I need to go back and try again, because one sip—one spark—of a vintage offered by out tasting guide Maxence le Moulec at Grosperrin and I find myself wondering where I can buy a nice set of crystal brandy glasses. A sip of another and I’m thinking of purchasing a set of leather armchairs. One more and I’m considering looking for an apartment with a working fireplace.

Grosperrin isn’t only a connoisseur’s Cognac. It can also be a Cognac for infrequently imbibing non-connoisseurs who would enjoy splurging for a quality bottle that will last a while, or for someone who already owns a set of leather chairs and crystal tumblers but not the brandy to go with it, or, finally, someone who may never buy a bottle Cognac but wants a sip of local heritage excellence while traveling in the region. Even a sniff-swirl-and-spit tasting may suffice to understand the meaning of carpe diem, as the Roman poet sang. Let’s take this opportunity to recall what the Roman playwright said: “Moderation in all things is the best policy.”

For 7€, visitors are welcome for a tour and tasting. More intense and in-depth tasting tours can be reserved for 45€ and 150€. Advance booking is advised. Grosperrin isn’t the only merchant to go for quality in the Cognac-producing region, but I give them their due for sparking my interest in Cognac.

Is Cognac too harsh for you? Try Pineau des Charentes when in the region. Pineau is a fortified wine of about 17% in which grape juice (white, red or rosé) and Cognac are mixed and aged on oak barrels to create a sweet aperitif, served chilled. Don’t drink? Savor the food stands at the Saint Pierre Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

So would I recommend that you go out of the way for Saintes?

I thought about the question on the long train ride back to Paris. How could I possibly give a generic answer? To each his or her own sparks, interests, imagination and cheap thrills. But don’t readers deserve an answer, a proverbial thumbs-up or thumbs-down or an algorithmic 1 to 5 stars? Was there something special here or was this just another quaint old French town? And if the latter, isn’t that enough?

I thought of all I’d done: I’d met archeologists and gladiators, learned history and words, descended into an eerie crypt, slept in a nunnery, wandered around a bizarre museum, nipped Cognac. Then suddenly, in a spark, I imagined Julius Ceasar, pleased, contemplative and exhausted on his way home from the Gallic Wars that would change the course of history all along this train route. I felt just like that. I came, I saw, I conked out.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

Read about two other towns in the department of Charente-Maritime in New Aquitaine, Rochefort and La Rochelle.

The post Sparks of Curiosity in Saintes appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

As we watched the flames rise and the spire fall on Notre-Dame Cathedral on April 15, 2019, those who lived in or had visited Paris before felt a nearly personal sense of loss. Notre-Dame was truly “our” Lady, whether beheld with the eyes of a Catholic or not. Even among the hundreds of millions who saw images of the conflagration but hadn’t yet had the pleasure of visiting the French capital, many spoke of the event as a calamity or a tragedy. Many would wallow in those feelings for days.

But for some, there was little time for heartache. The fire was a call to action—for firemen, the president and government officials (Notre-Dame belongs to the French state), Catholic Church officials, historical architects, scaffolders, logisticians, restoration specialists, foundation managers who would accept pledges and funds amounting to 840 million euros (940 million dollars at the time), lumberjacks, quarriers, etc., and journalists and photographers as well. I, myself, took a call from NBC Philadelphia the night of the fire. But once the (lead) dust had settled, media entrance to the cathedral was carefully limited.

Among those who repeatedly gained access to the wounded monument from 2020 to 2024, few journalists covered the restoration project as thoroughly as Sophie Laurant, senior history and cultural heritage reporter for Le Pèlerin, a weekly Christian general news magazine, France’s oldest continually published magazine (1873).

Even fewer, if any, photographers were authorized to enter the worksite as frequently and extensively as Stéphane Compoint, an independent photojournalist specialized in architecture, cultural heritage and aerial photography, and a World Press Photo winner, tasked with Le Pèlerin to cover the restoration project. Stéphane had earned his stripes as a photographer of Notre-Dame well before the fire; in 2013 he’d made major photographic study the cathedral for a special edition of Le Pèlerin, producing photographs that became precious historical documentation of the state of the cathedral before the fire. From the date of the fire until its reopening, he photographed Notre-Dame on 63 occasions from the inside and nearly as many times from outside.

Several days after the reopening of the cathedral to Catholic and non-Catholic visitors alike on December 8, I had the opportunity to interview Sophie and Stéphane, in writing. As you will read in the combined interview below, theirs is a precious testimony to the restoration process and to its technical achievements, its emotional impact, and the collective and individual investment involved, including their own.

(The original, French version of these interviews can be read here.)

Gary Lee Kraut: In your work you demonstrate an acute sensitivity toward heritage sights in general and religious heritage sights in particular. You’ve undoubtedly visited all of the Gothic cathedrals of France? But before examining these structures with the eyes of a professional journalist and photographer, what was your relationship with these magnificent mastodons of the Middle Ages? Do you recall the first time that you visited Notre-Dame?

Stéphane Compoint: A Parisian forever, I grew up in the 6th arrondissement. My grade school and high school were near Notre-Dame. The cathedral has always been a part of my immediate landscape.

My family was rather secular, even anticlerical. But my maternal grandfather drew closer to the God of the Catholic religion after the tragic death of his oldest son (my uncle), who died from drowning while trying to save a friend, who survived. He therefore became a believer and started going regularly to mass, often taking me with him to churches in the neighborhood (Saint Germain des Près, Saint Sulpice, Saint Séverin, Notre-Dame des Champs, Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, along with Notre-Dame) ever since I was a child. At the very least that taught me to be patient because at six years old mass can seem long. If I was well-behaved, I’d get a box of Legos afterwards!

Sophie Laurant: I grew up in Bourges, a lovely medieval town located in the very center of France. The town has one of France’s most beautiful Gothic cathedrals, built starting in 1195. It rose slightly after Notre-Dame (whose construction was launched in 1163) and is a contemporary of Chartres. Furthermore, my father was a history professor and often gave tours of the monument, of which the inhabitants are quite proud, whenever friends or family were visiting. So I learned at a young age how to distinguish Gothic art from Romanesque art. My father explained to us that Bourges was famous for the red of its stained-glass windows whereas it’s the blue of Chartres that dazzled. He pointed out that our cathedral, unlike most, didn’t have a transept but the shape of the overturned hull of a boat.

I don’t recall the first time that I visited Notre-Dame de Paris. It was undoubtedly with my parents when we went up to Paris as tourists. However, I do remember that when I was a university student [in Paris] I went in one Sunday afternoon when I was feeling quite lonely in the capital. By chance I arrived just when the traditional weekly organ concert was going on. It was magnificent. I went back several times afterward, especially since it was free, which is a blessing for a student.

Gary Lee Kraut: Where were you on Monday April 15, 2019 when you learned that Notre-Dame was in flames. How did your evening unfold?

Stéphane Compoint: I was at home, heaving with sobs! But I quickly got into a long phone conversation with Catherine Lalanne, the editor-in-chief of Le Pèlerin, which projected us both into the immediate future and into action, which did me a world of good. Because it was Monday, the day the weeklies go to press, we had to put in place an appropriate editorial strategy right away, modify the issue due to come out on the following Thursday, and launch a special edition that would be published the following Friday. We didn’t get many hours of sleep that week, but at least we were working rather than sitting passively faced with the enormous loss.

Sophie Laurant: While I was in the metro on my way home from work, I received a text from a colleague, but I didn’t realize how serious it was—not until I reached the foot of my building and got a call from my editor, Catherine Lalanne. She’d just asked that the deadline for our weekly edition going to press be pushed back since it was on its way to the printing press, as every Monday evening. She just had time to insert a large photo and a caption. I then followed the events on TV, while at the same time speaking with a friend who does restorations of historical monuments who explained to me that the outbreak of a fire is the nightmare of companies that restore roofing frameworks. I didn’t turn off the TV until it was clear that the monument had been saved. And the next morning I intentionally took a bus to work that passes by the cathedral. I had to see with my own eyes that it was still there. I even took a picture through the bus window to reassure myself. As soon as I arrived at work, we decided to republish our special edition that we’d brought out in 2013 for the cathedral’s 850th anniversary, adding in updated information. For each copy sold, 1€ was donated to the Notre-Dame fund. We sold 33,000 copies and therefore, from the start, had the feeling that we were being useful. It was important to overcome the disaster. Moreover, the architects [responsible for restoring Notre-Dame] asked to consult Stéphane’s photographs, which at that point had become historical documents.

Gary Lee Kraut: When were able to enter Notre-Dame for the first time following the fire? Tell us how that unfolded and about your impressions.

Stéphane Compoint: Despite its status as a Christian weekly, the negotiations between Le Pèlerin and the state’s media communications directors for the restauration project to allow me to enter the site were difficult. Finally, our salvation came from General Georgelin* himself, the person overseeing the cathedral’s restoration, a believer who was sensitive to the mid-elevation photographic work that I’d done with a tethered balloon in 2013 for the 850th anniversary of the cathedral. We gave him large prints of these photographs and he decorated his office with them. I was able to enter the wounded cathedral for the first time on March 3, 2020, ten and a half months after the fire.

Sophie Laurant: I finally went inside Notre-Dame on October 21, 2020. During the first year [after the fire] the teams were busy with decontaminating the lead and consolidating the cathedral. Also, under the management of General Georgelin, a very strict, top-down administration was put in place to filter press requests. Luckly, Le Pèlerin had published in 2013 a special edition magazine entirely devoted to Notre-Dame, prepared with assistance from the clergy. Stéphane was able to enter for an initial post-fire photo reportage in March 2020. Catherine than insisted—incessantly—to the general and to the communications services for the restoration project that Le Pèlerin wanted a print journalist to be able to enter. They finally accepted for us to become “partners,” allowing us to regularly follow the rehabilitation in pictures and in text. I didn’t go often, but more than most other media.

I have an indelible memory from that first visit of climbing scaffolding, of the incredible view over Paris that then revealed itself. When I reached the top of the walls of the cathedral, I had a view of the charred beams that were still stuck into the angles of the crossing of the transept. That’s all that remained of the base of the spire! It was then that I fully realized the extend of the task that lay ahead.

* GLK note: Notre-Dame Cathedral belongs to the French state and so it is the state’s responsibility to maintain the edifice. The day following the fire, President Emmanuel Macron announced his wish that the reconstruction be complete within five years. General Jean-Louis Georgelin was appointed to spearhead the project the next day. General Georgelin did not live to see it reopened since he died in a hiking accident on August 18, 2023.

Gary Lee Kraut: Carrying out the research necessary for the restoration project gave specialists the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the building and its history. Were there any discoveries or analyses that particularly surprised or impressed you?

Sophie Laurant: Yes, the researchers were the first to mobilize, immediately after the fire. At the Association des Journalistes du Patrimoine*, we quickly organized press encounters with some of them. Their primary message was the following: “We have a lot of information about Notre-Dame and we have to put it to the service of the restoration.” Immediately, the architects** asked them to take sample, to carry out analyses and studies, to make surveys and collect data throughout the monument in order to document as much as possible all of the elements, including the debris. These details studies enabled them to refine their restoration strategy. For example, to select a limestone very similar to the origin when cutting new stones.

Over those five years, the specialists discovered enormous amounts of information about Notre-Dame. For example, that the walls were consolidated by enormous iron staples. We didn’t think that that technique had been so used in the 12th century.

But the most spectacular discovery is undoubtedly the uncovering during the archeological digs at the crossing of the transept of high-quality pieces of sculptures from the medieval jube [also known as a rood or choir screen in English]. That decorative wall enclosed the church’s chancel, separating the sacred space where mass was said from the more secular space of the nave where the public came to hear (but not see) the service. Catholic liturgy evolved in the 16th century, prompted by the Protestant Reform movement. Jubes were destroyed in almost all churches and cathedrals in order to bring the clergy and the congregation closer together and allow a better understanding the ceremonial rites. However, since the sculpted figures represented Christ, Mary, the Apostles, etc., the workers had the habit of piously burying their pieces on site as they removed them. That’s why archeologists have found pieces of the jube in many cathedrals, such as in Bourges or Chartres. What’s incredible here at Notre-Dame is that sculptures retained colors that would have been lost if they’d stayed in contact with the air inside the building. On certain figures from the Gospels, we see that they have blue eyes or a delicately pink complexion, as in illuminated manuscript from the period. It’s magnificent! They’re now exhibited at the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris. I also learned that one of the heads found during prior work on the cathedral in the 19th century, and that’s now found at Duke University in North Carolina, fits perfectly with a bust that was found in March 2022. For a project called “Notre-Dame in color,” the American researcher Jennifer Feltman is pursuing research with French colleagues to gather together the different pieces.

Stéphane Compoint: As a photo-journalist I’ve participated in many campaigns of archeological excavations throughout the world (Egypt, Turkey, Peru, Chili, etc.), including underwater excavations of the Lighthouse of Alexandria from 1995 to 1997, for which I won a World Press Photo. I was particularly moved by the discovery of the medieval jube in the spring of 2022. Seeing the face of Christ, eyes closed, emerging from the archeologists’ large and small brushes in the middle of the crossing of the transept is something that I’ll never forget. I also remember the reaction of the chief archeologist, who was right next to me at that moment: “The greatest emotion of my career!” Since I was the only press photographer on site that day, it gave me even greater professional satisfaction.

* GLK note: The Association des Journalistes du Patrimoine is France’s association of journalists covering all manner of cultural heritage. From 2016 to 2022, Sophie Laurant served as its president. Gary Lee Kraut served as the association’s secretary general 2016-2020. Stéphane Compoint is also a member.

** GLK note: In France, historical monuments are preserved by specialized architects known as “Architectes des Bâtiments de France.” These civil servants entrust restoration projects to other specialists, the “architectes en chef des Monuments historiques.” Philippe Villeneuve is the chief architect in charge of the cathedral restoration project.

Gary Lee Kraut: Over the course of your respective work, you’ve met many craftsmen, workers and managers of the restoration project, in Paris and throughout France. Are there any whose approach or personality particularly impressed or fascinated you?

Sophie Laurant: They were all high-level, passionate craftsmen. I especially appreciated meeting the painting restorer Marie Parant, who coordinated one of the groups that restored the paintings in the chapels of the choir of Notre-Dame. A great admirer of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc*, the architect who painted them in the 19th century, she invited me to visit her workshop near Bastille to show me documents and help me understand the quality of the colors. She also participated in the “chorale des compagnons,” a chorus consisting of all those who took part in the restoration, whether archeologists, logistic specialists, stone cutters, etc. The chorus sang inside the cathedral on Dec. 11, [several days after its reopening,] to celebrate the working community that they formed together. We could sense a real “Notre-Dame effect” that had unified them, a mix of pride with respect to the monument, of the joy of working on a common project, and a fervor for something greater than themselves individually.

I was also struck by the strong personality of Loïc Desmonts, a young lead carpenter (only 25 years old!), who’s redeveloping in Normandy the art of building wooden framework using medieval methods. He and his team cut wood while it’s still green using hand tools. He also promotes the “French-style scribing tradition in timber framing,” which is a way of creating on the ground a full-scale drawing of each piece of the frame before cutting it. That tradition of scribing has existed since the 13th century and is recognized by UNESCO on its list of “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.” While visiting him, I met members of the NGO “Carpenters Without Borders.” Among them were two American craftsmen who spoke to me with tears in their eyes of their love for Notre-Dame, the reason that they came to France to give a hand to their French colleagues. There are in fact very few carpenters anywhere in the world with the know-how to cut the framework in the way it was done back in the day.

Finally, there’s Iris Serrières, a stained-glass artist who works in the company run by her mother, the stained-glass restorer and creator Flavie Vincent-Petit, in Troyes [100 miles southeast of Paris]. When I met this deliberate and joyful young woman, she was hesitating between becoming a theologian and a master glassmaking! Maybe, she said, she could do both. The family workshop restored a portion of the cathedral’s 24 upper bay windows. The two women shared with me their feeling about being a part of a long line of master-glassmakers and of rediscovering how and continuing “to combine intelligence, gesture and spirituality” so that “these windows were again legible.”

Stéphane Compoint: I was impressed by the encyclopedic knowledge that Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect, has of the monument and by the sound way in which he made decisions that were crucial but far from obvious in the days following the fire. I also appreciated the personality of the head scaffolder, Didier Cuiset, whose academic training is limited but whose know-how is exceptional. Like many journeymen, he comes from a modest background and was brought up with little inclination to speak of oneself, but he had to learn how to explain what he knows and how he knows it in order to satisfy the media. He made a lot of progress in five years.

*GLK note: Viollet-le-Duc led a major restoration of Notre-Dame in the middle of the 19th century. In doing so, he also added new elements, some of which existed but in different forms over the centuries, including the spire that collapsed during the fire and has since been rebuilt.

Gary Lee Kraut: Was there a moment during your journalistic or photographic work inside the cathedral that particularly surprised you or that has left a lasting impression?

Sophie Laurant: There was one moment that I’ll remember for a long time. It was in the spring of 2022 when I decided to interview the crane operator who was piloting the crane from 80 meters (262 feet) overhead. The crane was there throughout the entire project. In order to reach him, I had to take an elevator up to a tiny platform, 60 meters (197 feet) up, and from there climb a caged ladder the final 20 meters (65 feet) before reaching his heated and comfortable cabin. I had vertigo from the start, and I was afraid of stopping paralyzed in the middle of the ladder, suspended in mid-air. I decided that I’d rather give up on attempting the final ascent, because if ever I blocked ongoing work due to a panic attack, I undoubtedly would never be given permission onto the site again. The crane operator, very much at ease up there, offered instead to conduct the interview on the tiny platform! I wasn’t so calm there either, but I didn’t dare refuse. So in the cold and the wind, with the crane lightly swaying, I gathered my courage, avoided look down at the miniscule workers working down below on the temporary roof of Notre-Dame, and I asked him my questions. I’m rather proud to have succeeded because at home I have vertigo on a stool!

Stéphane Compoint: In the summer of 2020, at the end of a day photographing inside the cathedral, at one-thirty in the morning, I was struck by an unexpected encounter with the top of the charred spire imbedded in the exterior curve of an arch of the nave. I’d entered the building at 7:30 a.m. and hadn’t eaten or drunk for 18 hours, but that vision, that photo, was well worth the effort! In the fall of 2020, I also had that first long-awaited overall exterior view that took in all of the devastated wood framing, which I was able to take thanks for a giant tripod (of my own creation) that I’d raised about 15 meters (49 feet) above the devastated transept crossing.

Gary Lee Kraut: Do you feel that the public was sufficiently informed throughout the rehabilitation period? Did you encounter any difficulties doing your journalistic work?

Sophie Laurant: In the end a lot of articles were written. The entire international press covered the project, from near and from far. It’s true that the public powers overseeing the project were selective in choosing media that could enter the site and they limited access. Some of the reasons are understandable. The cathedral was entirely covered in lead dust. We had to get entirely undressed in a special chamber, put on a disposable boilersuit, and take a shower and shampoo when we finally left, like all workers who enter a “contaminated zone.” Furthermore, the project had to be done in five years, so the teams didn’t have much time to devote to the press. Clearly, it was difficult for the journalists to endure, to have to incessantly request authorization to interview anyone involved in the project. But at Le Pèlerin we had the privilege of being able to follow operations on a regular basis. I entered the cathedral seven times over five years. Stéphane entered far more frequently.

Gary Lee Kraut: Sophie, you wrote most of the text and, Stéphane, you took the photographs for the special edition of Le Pèlerin about the “exceptional construction site” of Notre-Dame published to coincide with the reopening of the cathedral. Does this signal the end of the Notre-Dame adventure for you or will you continue to report on and photograph Notre-Dame?

Stéphane Compoint: After the reopening, Le Pèlerin will naturally reduce its written and photographic coverage of the construction site. Nevertheless, work will continue for about another three years on the exterior of the cathedral, particularly around the apse and the buttresses of the nave and the chancel. We’ll try to be present at key moments during that work.

Sophie Laurant: We’re going to continue to follow the restoration which is now focused on the chevet [east end] and gables of the cathedral, outside. Stéphane will also try to exhaustively document the cathedral as it today, as he did in 2013. And we’re going to be very attentive to the choice of master glassmaker who will be designing new windows for the southern side of the nave; the installation of contemporary tapestries in the northern chapel in the next 18 months; the upcoming creation of a museum decided to Notre-Dame in the Hôtel-Dieu [the old hospital that occupies one side of the square in front of cathedral], and the square itself that will be entirely remodeled and modernize so as to allow for a better reception and flow for visitors. We’ll likely be publishing many of these reports on our internet site over the coming years.

Gary Lee Kraut: Having followed the restoration these past five years, has your view of the cathedral changed?

Sophie Laurant: Yes. I now know it very well, whereas before it was just one of many cathedrals that I didn’t enter very often before the fire. And I remember its grey walls, the semi-darkness, the crowds. Now it’s blond, clean, extremely well lit, and that showcases the paintings (now all cleaned) unlike in any other church in France.

Stéphane Compoint: The first thing that changed in my view of the cathedral was that I was better able to measure the extent to which the work of the builders of the 12th and 13th centuries is full of technical achievements. Being able to listen to lead architects speaking often and at length on site is worth any number of lectures in a lecture hall. I therefore learned a lot of fascinating things about a field—architecture—that has always interested me (my father was an architect). And the way I see Notre-Dame has changed because we’ve gone from a dark cathedral to a luminous cathedral, and, like many photographers, I like the light! Finally, I know that from now on I’ll see images of the expert craftsmen and journeymen at work superimposed onto my actual view whenever I visit the restored cathedral, and that’s a privilege.

To learn more about Sophie Laurant’s journalistic work, see here. 
To learn more about Stéphane Compoint’s photographic work, see here. 
Entrance to Notre-Dame Cathedral is free. Timed reservations are not required but can help avoid long lines, especially during busy periods. For a timed reservation, see here. 

© 2024 Gary Lee Kraut / France Revisited

The post Notre-Dame: An Interview with Witnesses to a Dazzling Restoration appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

En regardant les flammes s’élever et la flèche tomber sur la cathédrale Notre-Dame le 15 avril 2019, ceux qui vivaient à Paris ou l’avaient déjà visitée ont ressenti un sentiment de perte presque personnel. Notre-Dame était vraiment « notre » Dame, qu’elle soit vue dans les yeux d’un croyant ou non. Même parmi les centaines de millions de personnes qui ont vu les images du sinistre mais n’ont pas encore eu le plaisir de visiter la capitale française, beaucoup ont qualifié l’événement de calamité ou de tragédie. La plupart ont éprouvé ce sentiment de perte durant des jours.

Mais pour certains, il n’y a pas eu de temps pour le chagrin. L’incendie a été un appel à l’action – pour les pompiers, le Président et les représentants de l’Etat (Notre-Dame appartient à l’État français), ceux de l’Église catholique, les architectes des monuments historiques, les échafaudeurs, les logisticiens, les spécialistes de la restauration, les responsables des fondations qui ont accepté puis géré des dons s’élevant à 840 millions d’euros (940 millions de dollars à l’époque), etc. Même activité intense chez les journalistes et les photographes. J’ai moi-même reçu un appel de la chaîne américaine NBC Philadelphie la nuit de l’incendie, mais aucun média ne pouvait entrer dans la cathédrale durant ces premiers moments. Et même plus tard, lorsque le risque d’inhaler de la poussière de plomb a diminué, l’entrée de médias a été très soigneusement limitée.

Parmi ceux qui ont pu entrer à plusieurs reprises dans le monument meurtri entre 2020 et 2024, se trouvent la journaliste Sophie Laurant et le photographe Stéphane Compoint, tous deux travaillant pour Le Pèlerin, un hebdomadaire chrétien d’informations générales, le plus ancien hebdomadaire de France à être publié sans interruption depuis sa fondation, en 1873.

Peu de journalistes ont été autorisés à pénétrer dans la cathédrale pendant la période de restauration aussi souvent que Sophie Laurant, grand reporter histoire et patrimoine au Pèlerin. Et encore moins de photographes ont obtenu des autorisations aussi fréquemment et aussi largement que Stéphane Compoint, photojournaliste indépendant spécialisé dans l’architecture, le patrimoine et la photographie aérienne, et lauréat du World Press Photo, chargé par Le Pèlerin de couvrir le projet de restauration. Stéphane avait gagné ses galons de photographe de Notre-Dame bien avant l’incendie puisqu’en 2013, il avait réalisé une étude photographique majeure de la cathédrale pour une édition spéciale du Pèlerin, produisant des photographies qui sont devenues une documentation historique précieuse de l’état de la cathédrale avant l’incendie. Entre la date de l’incendie et la réouverture, il a photographié Notre-Dame à 63 reprises de l’intérieur et presque autant de l’extérieur !

Quelques jours après la réouverture de la cathédrale aux visiteurs—catholiques et non catholiques—le 8 décembre, j’ai eu l’occasion d’interviewer Sophie et Stéphane, par écrit. Comme vous pourrez le lire dans l’entretien combiné ci-dessous, il s’agit d’un témoignage précieux sur le processus de restauration et ses réalisations techniques, sur son impact émotionnel et sur l’investissement collectif et individuel, y compris le leur.

Gary Lee Kraut : De par votre travail vous avez une sensibilité aiguisée pour le patrimoine en général et pour le patrimoine religieux en particulier. Vous devez bien connaître toutes les cathédrales gothiques de France. Mais avant de voir ces édifices de l’œil d’un journaliste professionnel, quel était votre rapport avec ces magnifiques mastodontes du moyen âge ? Vous rappelez-vous de la toute première fois que vous avez visité Notre-Dame ?

Stéphane Compoint : Parisien depuis toujours, j’ai grandi dans le 6ème arrondissement, mes collège et lycée étaient très proches de Notre Dame : la cathédrale a toujours fait partie de mon paysage proche !

Ma famille était plutôt laïque, voire anticléricale… Mais mon grand-père maternel s’est rapproché du Dieu de la religion catholique après la disparition tragique de son fils ainé (mon oncle, donc), qui est mort noyé en voulant sauver un ami, lequel s’en est sorti. Il est donc devenu croyant, s’est mis à aller à la messe régulièrement et m’emmenait très souvent dans les églises du quartier (Saint Germain des Prés, Saint-Sulpice, Saint Séverin, Notre Dame des Champs, Saint Germain l’Auxerrois mais aussi Notre Dame) dès mon plus jeune âge. Au moins, ça m’a appris à être patient car, à l’âge de 6 ans, la messe peut sembler longue ! Si j’étais sage, j’avais droit à une boite de Lego à la sortie !

Sophie Laurant : D’abord, j’ai grandi à Bourges, une jolie cité médiévale située exactement au centre de la France. Or, cette ville possède l’une des plus belles cathédrales gothiques de France, construite à partir de 1195. Elle est légèrement postérieure à Notre-Dame (dont le chantier commence en 1163) et contemporaine de Chartres. En outre, mon père était professeur d’histoire et faisait souvent visiter ce monument dont tous les habitants sont fiers, à des amis ou des membres de la famille venus en visite. Si bien que j’ai appris très jeune à distinguer l’art gothique de l’art roman ! Mon père nous expliquait que Bourges était fameux pour le rouge de ses vitraux alors qu’à Chartres, c’était le bleu qui éblouissait. Il nous faisait remarquer que notre cathédrale, contrairement à la plupart, n’avait pas de transept mais une forme de carène de bateau renversée.

Je ne me souviens pas en revanche de ma première visite à Notre-Dame de Paris. Ce fut sans doute avec mes parents, lorsque nous « montions » à Paris en touristes. Cependant, je me rappelle que lorsque j’étais étudiante, j’étais entrée, un peu par hasard, un dimanche après-midi où je me sentais très seule dans la capitale. Et, par hasard, je suis tombée au moment du traditionnel concert d’orgue hebdomadaire. C’était magnifique et je suis ensuite revenue plusieurs fois. Surtout que c’était gratuit : une aubaine pour une étudiante !

Gary Lee Kraut : Où étiez-vous le 15 avril 2019 quand vous avec pris appris que Notre-Dame était en flammes et comment s’est déroulé votre soirée ?

Stéphane Compoint : J’étais chez moi, attaqué par des sanglots ! Mais je suis entré très vite dans une longue conversation téléphonique avec Catherine Lalanne (la rédactrice en chef de Pèlerin), ce qui nous a tous les deux projetés dans un futur proche et dans l’action, ce qui m’a fait un bien fou ! Car nous étions un lundi, jour de bouclage des hebdomadaires, et il a fallu tout de suite mettre en place une stratégie éditoriale adaptée, modifier l’édition à paraitre le jeudi suivant et mettre en route un n° hors-série à paraitre le vendredi suivant…. La semaine fut très courte en heures de sommeil mais au moins nous étions dans le travail plutôt que passif face à cette immense perte !

Sophie Laurant : J’étais dans le métro, je rentrais chez moi du travail. J’ai reçu le SMS d’une consœur, mais je n’ai pas réalisé que c’était grave. C’est seulement arrivée au pied de mon immeuble que j’ai reçu l’appel de ma rédactrice en chef, Catherine Lalanne : elle venait de demander qu’on recule le bouclage de notre numéro hebdomadaire qui partait à l’imprimerie, comme tous les lundis soirs. Elle a juste eu le temps de faire insérer une grande photo avec une légende. Du coup, j’ai suivi tous les événements devant ma télévision, tout en dialoguant avec un ami restaurateur de monuments historiques qui m’expliquait que les départs de feu sont la terreur des entreprises qui restaurent les charpentes. Je n’ai éteint la télé que lorsqu’on a appris que le monument était sauvé. Et le lendemain matin, je suis passée exprès en bus devant la cathédrale : j’avais besoin de vérifier de mes yeux qu’elle était toujours bien là. J’ai même pris une photo à travers la vitre, un peu rassurée. Dès je suis arrivée au journal, nous avons décidé de republier notre hors-série paru en 2013 pour les 850 ans de la cathédrale, avec évidemment une actualisation. Sur chaque numéro, 1 € était reversé pour la collecte en faveur de Notre-Dame. Nous avons vendu 33 000 exemplaires… Nous avons donc eu, dès le début, le sentiment d’être utiles. C’était important pour surmonter ce désastre. D’ailleurs, les architectes ont demandé à consulter les images de Stéphane qui devenaient des documents historiques.

Gary Lee Kraut : Quand avez-vous pu rentrer à Notre-Dame pour la première fois après l’incendie ? Pouvez-vous nous raconter l’aventure et vos impressions ?

Stéphane Compoint : Malgré le statut d’hebdomadaire chrétien, les tractations entre Le Pèlerin et les responsables médias du chantier pour me laisser accéder au site furent très difficiles. Finalement, c’est du général Jean-Louis Georgelin lui-même (chef de l’Établissement Public chargé de reconstruire la cathédrale*), croyant et sensible au travail photographique à mi-hauteur (en ballon captif) que j’avais réalisé en 2013 pour le 850e anniversaire de la cathédrale, que viendra le salut. Nous lui avons offert des grands tirages de ces photographies, avec lesquelles il a décoré son bureau… Et j’ai pu entrer pour la première fois dans la cathédrale blessée le 3 mars 2020, soit 10 mois et demi après l’incendie.

Sophie Laurant : Ce fut seulement le 21 octobre 2020. Car durant la première année, les équipes étaient occupées à dépolluer le plomb et à consolider la cathédrale. En outre, se mettait en place, sous la direction du général Georgelin nommé par le président de la République Emmanuel Macron, toute une administration pyramidale qui filtrait les demandes de la presse. Heureusement, au Pèlerin, nous avions publié en 2013, un hors-série entièrement consacré à Notre-Dame, réalisé avec l’aide du clergé. Stéphane a pu déjà effectuer un premier reportage en mars 2020. Ensuite, Catherine a insisté, insisté sans cesse, auprès du général et du service de communication de cet établissement public chargé de la restauration. Finalement, ils ont accepté que nous soyons « partenaires », c’est-à-dire, que nous puissions assez régulièrement, suivre le chantier, en images et en textes. Ce n’était pas beaucoup mais c’était plus que la plupart des autres médias.

De cette première visite, je garde le souvenir des échafaudages à escalader, de la vue incroyable sur Paris qui se dévoilait alors. Quand nous sommes arrivés sur le sommet des murs de la cathédrale, j’ai vu les poutres calcinées encore fichées dans les angles de la croisée du transept : c’était ce qui restait de la base de la flèche ! J’ai ressenti une impression de désolation. Là, tout à coup, je me rendais compte de l’ampleur de la tâche qu’il restait à accomplir.

* NDLR : La cathédrale Notre-Dame étant propriété de l’État français, c’est à l’État qu’incombe l’entretien de l’édifice. Dès le lendemain de l’incendie, le président Emmanuel Macron a annoncé son souhait que la reconstruction soit achevée dans les cinq ans. Le lendemain, le général Jean-Louis Georgelin est nommé à la tête du projet. Le général ne vivra pas le temps de la réouverture puisqu’il décède dans un accident de randonnée le 18 août 2023.

Gary Lee Kraut : Les recherches préalables à la restauration étaient l’occasion pour les spécialistes d’approfondir leurs connaissances de l’édifice et de son histoire. Y avait-il des découvertes ou des analyses qui vous ont particulièrement surprise ou impressionnée ?

Sophie Laurant : Oui, les chercheurs ont été les premiers à se mobiliser, dès le lendemain de l’incendie. A l’Association des journalistes du patrimoine*, nous avons d’ailleurs organisé très vite une rencontre avec certains d’entre eux. Leur premier message était le suivant : « nous avons beaucoup d’informations sur Notre-Dame et nous voulons les mettre au service de sa restauration. » Tout de suite après, les architectes** leur ont demandé de réaliser des prélèvements, des analyses, des études, des relevés dans le monument afin de documenter au maximum tous les éléments, y compris les débris. Ces études très poussées leur ont permis de préciser leur stratégie de restauration. Par exemple, de choisir un calcaire très similaire à celui d’origine pour tailler les pierres nouvelles.

Au fil des cinq ans, les scientifiques ont découvert énormément de nouvelles informations sur Notre-Dame. Par exemple, que ses murs étaient consolidés par d’énormes agrafes de fer. On ne pensait pas que cette technique était autant utilisée dès le XIIe siècle. Mais la découverte la plus spectaculaire est sans aucun doute, la mise au jour, lors de fouilles archéologiques à la croisée du transept, des morceaux de sculptures de grande qualité du jubé médiéval. Ce mur décoratif servait au Moyen Age à fermer le chœur de l’église et à séparer l’espace sacré où était dite la messe, de l’espace plus profane de la nef où le public venait écouter l’office (mais ne voyait pas). Au XVIe siècle, la liturgie catholique évolue, poussée par la Réforme protestante. Les jubés sont détruits dans presque toutes les églises et cathédrales afin de rapprocher le clergé de l’assistance et de mieux faire comprendre le rite.

Cependant, comme les personnages sculptés représentent le Christ, Marie, les apôtres… les ouvriers avaient l’habitude d’enterrer pieusement sur place les morceaux qu’ils démontent. C’est ainsi qu’on a retrouvé des morceaux du jubé dans de nombreuses cathédrales, comme Bourges ou Chartres. Mais là, à Notre-Dame, ce qui est incroyable c’est qu’on a pu sauvegarder les couleurs des sculptures avant que l’air ambiant ne les détruise. Et l’on découvre ainsi que certains personnages de l’Evangile ont les yeux bleus, un teint délicatement rosé, comme sur les enluminures ! C’est magnifique. On peut les voir en ce moment exposés au musée de Cluny, à Paris. Et j’ai appris qu’une tête qui avait été retrouvée au XIXe siècle lors de précédents travaux, et qui se trouve aujourd’hui à l’université américaine Duke, en Caroline du Nord, s’adapte exactement à un buste qui vient d’être retrouvé, en mars 2022. La chercheuse américaine Jennifer Feltman avec le projet « Notre-Dame in color » poursuit la recherche avec ses collègues français pour rassembler tous les morceaux…

Stéphane Compoint : En tant que photo-journaliste, j’ai participé à de nombreuses campagnes de fouilles archéologiques dans le Monde (en Égypte, Turquie, Pérou, Chili, etc.) dont celle sur les fouilles sous-marines sur les vestiges du Phare d’Alexandrie en 1995-1997, où j’ai reçu un World Press Photo. J’ai été donc particulièrement ému par la découverte des vestiges du jubé médiéval, au printemps 2022 : voir un visage du Christ, les yeux clos, émerger des brosses et pinceaux des archéologues au beau milieu de la croisée du transept, c’est quelque chose que je n’oublierai jamais. Je me souviens aussi de la réaction du chef des archéologues, qui se trouvait à côté de moi à ce moment précis : « La plus grande émotion de toute ma carrière ! ». Et puis, j’étais le seul photographe de presse sur le site ce jour-là, ce qui m’a également procuré une grande satisfaction professionnelle !

* NDLR : Sophie Laurant a été présidente de l’Association des journalistes du patrimoine du 2016 to 2022. Gary Lee Kraut servait du secrétaire général du 2016 à 2020. Stéphane Compoint est également membre.

** En France, les monuments historiques sont conservés par des architectes spécialisés appelés « architectes des Bâtiments de France ». Ces fonctionnaires confient les chantiers de restauration à d’autres spécialistes, les « architectes en chef des Monuments historiques ». Philippe Villeneuve est l’architecte en chef des monuments historiques à la tête du chantier de restauration de la cathédrale.

Gary Lee Kraut : En préparant vos articles sur les multiples facettes de la restauration, vous avez pu rencontrer de nombreux artisans, ouvriers et responsables, à Paris et à travers la France. Y a-t-il une ou plusieurs personnes dont l’approche ou la personnalité vous a particulièrement impressionnée ou fascinée ?

Sophie Laurant : Ce sont tous des passionnés et des artisans de très haut niveau. J’ai beaucoup apprécié de rencontrer la restauratrice de peintures, Marie Parant, qui a coordonné un des groupes qui restaurait les peintures des chapelles du chœur de Notre-Dame. Cette professionnelle est une admiratrice d’Eugène Viollet-le-Duc*, l’architecte qui les a peintes, au XIXe siècle et elle m’a invitée deux fois dans son atelier, à Bastille, pour me montrer sa documentation et me faire comprendre la qualité de ces couleurs. Elle a aussi participé à la chorale des compagnons qui s’est formée entre tous les intervenants, qu’ils soient archéologues, logisticiens ou tailleurs de pierre. Ils ont chanté le 11 décembre dans la cathédrale pour célébrer la communauté de travail qu’ils ont tous formé. Il y a réellement eu un « effet Notre-Dame » que nous sentions chez tous : mélange de fierté devant un tel monument, de joie de travailler à un projet commun, d’élan vers plus grand que soi.

J’ai aussi été marquée par la personnalité forte de Loïc Desmonts, un tout jeune patron charpentier (il a 25 ans), qui redéveloppe, en Normandie, l’art d’ériger des charpentes à la façon médiévale : avec ses équipes, il taille le bois encore vert et utilise des outils manuels. Il défend aussi « l’art du trait à la française » qui est une façon de tracer, à l’échelle 1, les épures de chaque pièce de charpente, sur le sol, avant de les tailler. Cet art est reconnu par l’Unesco. Chez lui, j’ai rencontré des membres de l’ONG « Charpentiers sans frontières ». Notamment deux artisans américains qui m’ont parlé, les larmes aux yeux, de leur amour pour Notre-Dame, pour laquelle ils sont venus en France, donner un coup de main à leurs collègues français. Car il existe très peu de charpentiers, dans le monde, qui savent encore tailler des charpentes à l’ancienne.

Enfin, je citerai Iris Serrière, qui est vitrailliste dans l’entreprise de sa mère, la restauratrice et créatrice de vitraux, Flavie Vincent-Petit, à Troyes. Cette jeune fille très réfléchie et joyeuse, hésitait, quand je l’ai rencontrée, entre devenir théologienne ou maître-verrier ! Peut-être, se disait-elle, qu’elle pourrait pratiquer les deux… L’atelier familial a restauré une partie des 24 baies hautes de la cathédrale. Les deux femmes m’ont confié leur émotion de s’inscrire dans une lignée de maître-verriers, de retrouver et continuer à « allier l’intelligence, le geste et la spiritualité » pour « redonner à lire ces vitraux ».

Stéphane Compoint : J’ai été très impressionné par la connaissance encyclopédique du monument par Philippe Villeneuve, l’architecte en chef, et par la sureté de ses prises de décisions, cruciales mais qui n’avait rien d’évidentes, dans les jours qui ont suivi l’incendie. J’ai aussi beaucoup apprécié la personnalité du chef des échafaudeurs, Didier Cuiset, dont le cursus académique se limite à un bac -3 mais dont le savoir-faire est exceptionnel. Comme de nombreux compagnons, il est d’origine modeste et a reçu une éducation où on est peu enclin à parler de soi-même, mais il a fallu qu’il apprenne aussi le faire-savoir pour satisfaire les médias… et il beaucoup progressé en cinq ans !

*NDLR : Viollet-le-Duc a dirigé une importante restauration de Notre-Dame au milieu du XIXe siècle. Ce faisant, il a également ajouté de nouveaux éléments, comme les chimères, ces sculptures de créatures imaginaires et en a remplacé d’autres comme la flèche qui s’est effondrée lors de l’incendie et qui a été reconstruite depuis.

Gary Lee Kraut : Y a-t-il un moment dans vos recherches qui vous a particulièrement surpris ou marqué ?

Sophie Laurant : Je pense à un moment dont je me souviendrai longtemps : au printemps 2022, je devais interviewer le grutier qui pilotait la très grande grue de 80 mètres de haut. Elle a accompagné tout le chantier. Celui-ci m’a fait monter en ascenseur jusqu’à une minuscule plateforme, à 60 mètres de haut où l’on doit ensuite prendre une échelle à crinoline pour franchir les 20 derniers mètres avant d’arriver à sa cabine chauffée et confortable… Déjà, j’avais le vertige, mais j’ai eu peur de rester paralysée au milieu de l’échelle, suspendue dans le vide… J’ai préféré renoncer, car si jamais j’avais bloqué le chantier par une crise de panique, je n’aurais sans doute plus jamais eu le droit d’entrer à nouveau. Le grutier, très à l’aise, m’a donc proposé de faire l’interview sur la minuscule plateforme ! Je n’étais guère plus tranquille, mais je n’ai pas osé refuser. Alors, dans le froid, le vent, avec la grue qui oscillait légèrement, j’ai rassemblé mon courage, évité de regarder les ouvriers minuscules qui œuvraient plus bas, sur le toit provisoire de Notre-Dame, et je lui ai posé mes questions. Je suis assez fière d’avoir réussi, car chez moi, j’ai le vertige sur un tabouret !

Stéphane Compoint : A l’été 2020, j’ai été marqué par la rencontre inattendue avec la partie sommitale de la flèche calcinée, encastrée dans l’extrados de la nef, lors d’une fin de journée de reportage, à une heure et demi du matin : j’étais entré à 7h30, sans pouvoir manger ou boire durant ces 18 heures, mais cette vision et cette photo valait bien tous ces efforts ! A l’automne 2020, il y a aussi cette première vue générale extérieure tant attendue, qui englobe toute la charpente dévastée, que j’ai pu prendre grâce à mon trépied géant (de ma conception) que j’ai élevé à une quinzaine de mètres au-dessus de la croisée dévastée.

Gary Lee Kraut : Estimez-vous que le public ait été bien informé pendant toute cette période de réhabilitation de Notre-Dame ? As-tu rencontré des difficultés en faisant tes reportages ?

Sophie Laurant : Il y a eu énormément d’articles au final. Toute la presse internationale a couvert le chantier, de près ou de loin. Mais il est vrai que l’Etablissement public a choisi les médias qui pouvaient accéder sur le chantier et a restreint l’accès. Certaines raisons sont compréhensibles : la cathédrale était entièrement couverte de poussière de plomb. Donc, il fallait se déshabiller entièrement dans un sas, se vêtir d’une combinaison jetable et prendre une douche avec shampoing au retour du reportage. Comme tous les ouvriers d’ailleurs qui pénétraient « en zone sale ». D’autre part, le chantier devait se mener en cinq ans, donc les équipes n’avaient pas beaucoup de temps à accorder à la presse. Mais c’est sûr qu’il était difficile à vivre, pour les journalistes, de devoir demander sans cesse des autorisations pour toutes les interviews des acteurs du chantier… Et encore, au Pèlerin, nous avons eu le privilège de suivre régulièrement les opérations : je suis entrée sept fois en cinq ans sur le chantier et Stéphane presque dix fois plus.

Gary Lee Kraut : Sophie, vous avez rédigé la plupart des textes, et Stéphane, vous avez pris les photos pour le hors-série important sur ce « chantier d’exception » publié par Le Pèlerin la semaine de sa réouverture. Ces reportages signalent-ils pour vous la fin de l’aventure Notre-Dame ?

Stéphane Compoint : Après la réouverture, Le Pèlerin va évidemment alléger la couverture écrite et photographique du chantier. Néanmoins, le celui-ci va durer encore trois ans environ à l’extérieur de la cathédrale, notamment au niveau de l’abside et des arcs boutants de la nef et du chœur : nous nous efforcerons donc d’être présents aux moments clés de ces travaux.

Sophie Laurant : Nous allons continuer de suivre les travaux qui désormais se concentrent sur le chevet et les pignons de la cathédrale, à l’extérieur. Stéphane va aussi essayer de documenter de manière exhaustive la cathédrale telle qu’elle est aujourd’hui, comme il l’avait fait en 2013. Et nous allons être attentifs au choix du maître-verrier qui doit proposer de nouveaux vitraux pour le sud de la nef ; à la pose de tapisseries contemporaines, dans les chapelles nord, d’ici dix-huit mois ; à la création prochaine d’un musée de l’œuvre de la cathédrale, dans l’hôtel-Dieu, sur le parvis… parvis qui va être entièrement remodelé et modernisé pour un meilleur accueil des visiteurs. Nous publierons sans doute beaucoup de ces reportages sur notre site internet, dans les années qui viennent.

Gary Lee Kraut : Après avoir suivi de près la restauration ces 5 dernières années, votre regard sur la cathédrale a-t-il changé ?

Sophie Laurant : Oui. Je la connais désormais très bien alors qu’elle n’était pour moi qu’une cathédrale parmi d’autres dans laquelle je n’entrais pas si souvent avant l’incendie. Et puis, je me souviens surtout des murs gris, de la pénombre, de la foule… Là, elle est blonde, propre, extrêmement bien éclairée. Cela met en valeur les tableaux (tous nettoyés) comme dans aucune autre église en France.

Stéphane Compoint : La première chose qui a changé dans mon regard sur la cathédrale, c’est que j’ai pu mieux mesurer à quel point le travail des bâtisseurs du XII° et XIII est parsemé de prouesses techniques ! Car pouvoir écouter régulièrement et longuement les architectes en chef sur le terrain, cela vaut tous les cours magistraux d’architecture en amphi ! J’ai donc appris beaucoup de choses passionnantes sur une discipline, l’architecture, qui m’a toujours intéressée (mon père était architecte). Quant à mon regard, il a changé car nous sommes passé d’une cathédrale obscure à une cathédrale lumineuse. Et moi, comme beaucoup de photographes, j’aime la lumière ! Enfin, je sais que, à l’avenir, je verrai des images d’artisans d’art et de compagnons au travail se superposer à ma vision actuelle lors de mes prochaines visites de la cathédrale restaurée : un privilège !

Pour en savoir plus sur le travail journalistique de Sophie Laurant, voir ici.
Pour en savoir plus sur le travail photographique de Stéphane Compoint, voir ici. 
La réservation (gratuite) pour visiter Notre-Dame n’est pas obligatoire. Cependant, elle est vivement conseillée pour un temps d’attente réduite.Voir ici. 

© 2024 Gary Lee Kraut / France Revisited

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Susan took a deep breath and left her mouth open. She was in ecstasy.

“Look, Claire,” she said to her daughter. “It’s beautiful. So beautiful. What do you think Claire? Notre-Dame!”

“I think it’s ugly,” said Claire.

“Don’t say that,” said Susan. “It’s magnificent. It’s Notre-Dame.”

“Well I think it’s ugly.” Claire was 14. Her thick, brown hair fell untamed over her shoulders.

Susan gave me the wink of an accomplice. I was their guide. I turned to the cathedral and pretended to be in deep thought.

“Gary’s going to tell us about it and you’ll see that it’s beautiful,” said Susan. “First, can you take our picture, Gary?”

She handed me her phone. An American offered to take a picture of the three of us and I thanked him, no. Susan put her arm around Claire’s shoulder. She wore a studied expression of joy while Claire gave a cheesy get-this-over-with smile. I took a vertical shot, a horizontal shot, then another shot while crouching down.

I handed Susan her phone. She checked the pictures to see if she looked alright. She was well and simply put together. Her fine brown hair was pulled into a loose pony tail.

“Now tell us why Notre-Dame is so beautiful,” said Susan.

I’d liked Susan from the start. She was easy-going and enthusiastic though so concerned that Claire enjoy herself on this mother-daughter trip that Claire had no choice but to show that she wasn’t.

“I never said it was beautiful,” I said.

“See,” said Claire.

“He’s kidding,” said Susan. “Tell us about Notre-Dame.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “I’ll agree with whichever one of you gives me the best argument for her point of view. Susan, you tell me why it’s beautiful and Claire you’ll tell me why it’s ugly. Susan, you go first.”

“OK,” said Susan. “I’m game.” She took a deep breath, thought, opened her arms to Our Lady, then spoke. “Well just look at it… This fabulous view across the square – in the middle of Paris. It’s magnificent. It’s so old. It’s famous. All that stone work. The two perfect towers. It’s so … symmetrical. It’s Notre-Dame. It’s beautiful.” She beams and winked at me again as though she’d pushed all the right buttons.

“Claire? Your turn.”

Lucky for me Claire played the contrarian teen without entirely fitting the role. She may have contradicted her mother at every turn but she had the intellect to back up her contradictions.

“Ugly,” she stated. “It’s just standing there. Or sitting there. Too much going on. A blob of stone. Maybe not a blob but too… messy. Looks like a drawing by a kid who’s trying to fill in every inch of the page. OK, a kid drawing with a ruler, I’ll give you that. But then all this stuff going on everywhere. Is that big circle a window?”

“Yeh.”

“It’s black. Looks like a fat cyclops sitting on the toilet with his hands in the air. Ugly.”

“Oh, Claire,” said her mother.

“Why would he be sitting on the toilet with his hands in the air?” I asked.

“That’s what cyclopses did back them,” answered Claire.

They both looked at me.

“Good reasoning,” I said. “I’m throwing my vote with Claire.”

Claire beamed at her mother.

“He’s joking,” said Susan.

“Are we going inside?” asked Claire.

“If you want?”

“I thought that’s why we were here.”

“Well, if it’s that ugly we don’t have to go in.”

“It’s not that ugly. It’s just ugly. Interesting ugly,” she said. “Definitely not beautiful.”

As we approached the cathedral I explained that when Notre-Dame was built this huge, empty square and wide view didn’t exist. There was just a road – you can see where it was from the cobblestones – leading to a small square in front of the church, otherwise there were other buildings, mostly apartment buildings separated by alleyways, filling the square. I explained that the cathedral we were looking at was only the latest of a succession of religious buildings on or near this site, dating back at least to a temple to the Roman god Jupiter built during the Roman development of a city that they called Lutetia 2000 years ago. That temple would later be rebuilt as a Christian basilica, right about where we were then standing as we got closer. It also served as the cathedral, meaning the seat of the bishop, of Paris. That cathedral, Saint Stephen, was rebuilt and evolved over time until a certain Bishop Sully decided in the year 1163 that Paris as the capital of a powerful Christian kingdom and he the bishop in an increasingly dense, vital, rich and intellectually active city, needed a new, larger, more impressive cathedral built with the latest technology, a technology and an artistic area that came to be called Gothic. And so began the construction of what was now standing, or sitting, before us began.

“And walà,” said Susan, “more impressive and more beautiful.”

“Is this the main church of France?” asked Claire.

“No, a cathedral is the main church in a city or region. It’s the church or seat of a bishop. There are over a hundred Catholic cathedrals in France, each with a bishop. But the true cathedral, rather, temple of France, of the French Republic, is something called the Pantheon. We’re going there next.”

“Is it just as ugly?” she said, elbowing her mother.

“No, different ugly. I think you’ll like it. You’ll both like it. But let’s focus on Notre-Dame first. It wasn’t built overnight. It took generations, nearly 200 years, to more or less complete and still continued to evolve over the centuries. The Notre-Dame that you see today isn’t a building of 1163. Far from it. It’s the fruit and the background of 850 years of construction and of political and religious and economic evolution. During that time newer architectural technologies and styles came and went elsewhere, and the church had to deal with weather damage and constant repair and then human damage during the French Revolution. It was still here though, at the center of a growing city, still impressive but battered, and in the early 1800s it was certainly less fashionable, certainly old, and some would even call it ugly, as Claire did. Even more than that, many saw it as a monument to the dangers of a dominant religion from a time when you could probably be arrested for saying it was ugly.”

“Arrested?”

“Or worse if you didn’t treat Christianity with proper respect.”

“Like what?”

“Like not taking your hat off or kneeling down when a procession passed.”

“What could they do to you?”

“Does Claire have a religious background?” I asked Susan.

“Episcopalian. I mean, we don’t go to church. But my parents were Episcopalian. Claire’s father was brought up Catholic. Christmas, Easter. Not the religious stuff.”

“Execute you,” I said. “But don’t worry. Blasphemy isn’t a crime anymore. You can disagree with someone’s notion of holiness and godliness, or beauty for that matter, without being arrested. In fact, this building doesn’t even belong to the Catholic Church anymore. It belongs to the French State, the government, the people. We should respect that some come here to pray while the people praying should respect us as curious people visiting a historical monument. That doesn’t mean that you can say bad things about a person or a group because of their religion. That’s against the law. Well, you can say them, just not too publicly.”

“You mean inside the church?” asked Claire.

“I mean anywhere, when talking about any religion.”

“See that statue there, the guy with his head in his hands? That’s Saint Denis. He came here to convert the Roman-era Parisians to Christianity in the year 250 and was executed.”

“Why?”

“Because the Romans wanted everyone to go to the temple just as the Christians later on wanted everyone to go to church.”

“How about the Muslims?” asked Susan.

“Muslims—Islam—didn’t exist at the time of the Romans and there were few if any who came to Paris before the French Revolution.”

“Can they visit Notre-Dame?”

“Anyone who wants to can. Anyway, as I was saying, Denis was executed, his head chopped off, then he picked it up and kept on preaching until he finally lay down to down and died about 4 miles north of there.”

“He did not,” said Claire.

“That’s what they say. Do you believe that?”

She looked at her mother. Her mother shook her head. “No,” said the girl.

“Neither do I,” I said. “I not sure even think the bishop of Saint Denis Basilica-Cathedral, where Denis is said to be buried, believes it.”

“How do you know?” said Susan.

“I met him once. A friendly man. I asked him if Catholics are really expected to believe that Denis picked up his head after it’d been chopped off and he said those who want to believe it can believe it but more importantly it shows that it wasn’t the Romans who decided when Denis should die but Denis, as a martyr, himself. Do you think that sculpture’s beautiful?” I asked. “Susan?”

“I like the angels to either side,” she said.

“Claire?”

“I don’t know. Do I have to say?”

“No. But now you know why it’s there. It’s a story. These are all stories,” I said as we got in line to walk inside the cathedral, “like pages of a book.” It was a slow day, only 10 minutes to get it. I pointed out Jesus in judgment, saints, apostles and sinners, visions of Hell, the Church and the Synagogue, Anne and Joachim, Jesus and Mary. “Lots of this was restored, even created, in the middle of the 1800s, some of it during time of our Civil War.”

“Did slaves build it?” asked Claire.

“No. Most people involved in building it were poor but they weren’t slaves as we once had in the U.S.; they weren’t owned as property. When I mentioned the Civil War I wanted to say that those portions from the middle of the 1800s aren’t really so old in Paris terms. The steeple you saw before, when were at the back of the square, was added then. There was a steeple long before but what’s there now wasn’t designed at Notre-Dame’s inception. The steeple is a part of Notre-Dame’s history but it’s relatively recent if you think back to 1163 when the project was started. It’s part of Notre-Dame’s evolution.”

“Some kids in my class say they don’t believe in evolution.”

“They’re the same kids who would stone you for calling their church ugly,” I said.

“He’s exaggerating,” Susan told Claire. “Don’t scare her,” she said with something less than a smile.

“Are you scared, Claire?”

“There was a school shooting in our state,” she said.

“Now that’s scary.” I said.

“Let’s change the subject,” said Susan.

“We were talking about evolution. How things evolve, how they develop, how they change. One day the original timbers holding up the roof may burn up, or the steeple will topple over, or a bomb will destroy part of the cathedral. What do you think they should do then? What would you want? Rebuild it the way it was or add some modern touches, make the portion that was destroyed different?”

We were near the front of the security line then. I said, “Tell me what you think when we get out.”

There was mass going on, incense in the air, arches meeting keystones overhead. There were chapels, stained glass windows, tombs, rose windows, a model of Notre-Dame built and a model of Notre-Dame under construction, lots of people, an organ, a Peruvian painting, a Chinese painting, restored and unrestored colors.

We exited by Saint Denis holding his head, with an angel to either side.

“So if Notre-Dame were to burn down tomorrow do you think the French should rebuilt it the way you see it today?”

“I’d hope so,” said Susan.

“Claire?”

“I don’t know. It’s interesting the way it is. I like that it’s old. But maybe they can do something exciting with it. Liven it up a little bit.”

“You still think it’s ugly?“

“Ugly enough,” she said.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Still beautiful, Susan?”

“More beautiful now that I’ve been here with my favorite and only daughter.”

“Claire, is there anything you see that you’d call beautiful around here?” I asked.

Claire looked around as Susan and I waited for her eye to latch onto something.

“My mother,” she finally said with such gloopy adolescent irony that you knew she meant it.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

Also see Still Life in Paris, Inspired by Notre-Dame, Our Glorious Ladies of Gothic Architecture, and the author’s site for tours, events and advice.

The post Judgment Day at Notre-Dame de Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

This evening I’m going out to the Vendeen countryside, south of the Loire near the Atlantic Coast, to embrace the new year with closest of friends.

“Are you going to make us those fat crepes again?” said my godchild when I told her I was coming. “They’re called pancakes,” I reminded her. Since I won’t be arriving until the evening I’m dispensed from helping to prepare tonight’s festivities, and in exchange I’ll be making pancakes in the morning. I’m bringing along some Cary’s Canadian maple syrup, hoping to pass it off as Gary’s.

I could have purchased my train ticket online but I like the sense of happy anticipation is buying it at the station. So I biked over to Gare de l’Est, the East Station. (This evening I’ll take the train southwest from the Montparnasse Station.)

I walked back and on the way, not far from the station, I visited the little garden square beside Saint Laurent Church. The exceedingly December weather has allowed it to remain green

and in flower.

It’s a hopeful garden square. The installations and plantings were done by people accompanied by Emmaüs Solidarité along with local volunteers, as is written on the sign.

Emmaus http://emmaus-france.org/ is an organization founded in France after the Second World War by Abbot Pierre (Henri Grouès) that aims to fight poverty and improve the conditions of those living in poverty while calling on the public and on government to act in solidarity with the poor.

We’ll be eating well this evening as we toast the new year, followed in the morning by pancakes, with much else in store for the weekend. Meanwhile, this charming little garden reminds passersby of the possibilities offered by peaceful earth. Rhubarb, for one.

It reminds us of the need for shelter.

It reminds us of the need for community, family and friends.

It reminds to build good

and better lives.

It reminds us that the needs of a man who would cultivate a small plot of earth,

the needs of a woman who would paint a shell

the needs of a child who would play in a city square,

and the needs of a man who would sleep in a public garden

are also our needs.

Beside the square, the church visible today is the third on this site. The first was built as part of a monastery dedicated to Saint Laurent in the 5th century. Saint Laurent was born in Spain then lived in Rome, where he helped the indigent. That was in the third century, before Christianity held sway in much of Europe, when the Roman authorities sought to diminish its appeal and get a hand on the expanding treasure of the early popes. Rather than see that treasure fall into the hands of the Roman authorities, Lauent distributed it to the poor. When asked to produce the papal riches he pointed to the poor and said, “There are the treasures of the Church.” His martyrdom involved being burned on a grill.

The current Saint Laurent Church was begun in the 15th century, with work on the flamboyant Gothic interior continuing for over 200 years .

Several men were praying in separate chapels. A woman in the welcome booth by the creche was moving her lips while reading a book. A woman was sleeping against a column. So was a man.

I emptied the change in my pocket into the collection box, selected a candle and lit it with the flame of another.

I’m not Catholic. I don’t pray. But as I placed the long thin candle in the holder my mind flickered between the man sleeping nearby, my departure this evening for a joyful New Year’s Eve, the pleasing continuity of renewing for 2016 my resolutions of 2015, plans to call family in the U.S. tonight, tomorrow’s pancakes and Friday evening’s Euromillion lottery.

I saw a scribe and decided to write this before leaving Paris to celebrate the new year.

Wishing a happy, healthy 2016 to all. Bonne année!

Gary Lee Kraut

Dec. 31, 2015

The post A Year Ends, A Year Begins in a Hopeful Little Paris Garden appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

***

Before asking yourself whether you want to be, or not to be, in Moulins, you’ll quite naturally ask yourself, as I once did, “O Moulins, Moulins, wherefore art thou Moulins.” For Moulins is an unlikely destination in the hinterlands of France that’s difficult to situate on the map. Being told that the towns of Bourges, Vichy, Nevers, Autun and Montluçon are within a radius of 60 miles only vaguely helps.

Ah, there you are, Moulins. Come, let’s away.

The thought of taking the train 2.5 hours from Paris to visit a museum dedicated to theatrical costumes did little in itself to get my travel juices flowing. Yet, accustomed to following the rails southeast and southwest from Paris, it felt strangely venturesome to ride due south beyond the Loire. I say there is no darkness but ignorance. Actually Shakespeare said that. But I was ignorant of Moulins, capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family known as Le Bourbonnais. So I took this trip as a challenge to discover something new for myself while exploring an unheralded region.

Moulins has since 2006 been home to the National Costume Center, Centre National du Costume de Scène or CNCS. In the world of theater, the CNCS is unique in its devotion to preserving, studying and exhibiting exceptional and histsorical theater costumes and elements of theater sets. Much of the collection comes from three founding institutions, the Comédie Française, the National Library (BNF) and the National Opera of Paris. The center also receives donations from costume designers, theaters, acting companies and artists and their heirs. Its vast collection of 10,000 costumes and another 10,000 articles largely remains in the on-site reserves. Choice items are then brought out thematically for evocative, even dramatic, temporary exhibits mounted twice yearly.

In 2014 the CNCS honors the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth with the exhibition Shakespeare, l’étoffe du monde (the fabric of the world), presenting costumes, mostly from French productions over the past century, of some of the bard’s most emblematic plays.

The exhibition begins by introducing visitors to the world of Elizabethan theater, then displays in a dozen rooms the diversity of Shakespeare’s world through the costumes of kings, queens, soldiers, jesters, witches, cross-dressing actors and assorted ghosts and spirits. The exhibition runs through Jan. 4, 2015.

Information about this and upcoming exhibitions can be found here.

O, had I but followed the arts!

It’s rare for France’s Ministry of Culture to allow a national collection to stray far from Paris, but the relative obscurity of theater costumes and the knowledge that the conservation of the vast collection required significant space, led to its removal from the capital region. For Moulins, a service town with a population of 27,000, 40,000 with the suburbs, the center’s creation here in 2006 was a coup that placed it on the cultural radar of the map of France.

Moulins is capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family but had no particular historical relationship with theatrical costumes, unless one counts the uniforms of the cavalrymen who occupied the exhibition building when originally built as barracks in the late 18th century. The architect Jacques Denis Antoine (1733-1801) also designed the old mint (Hôtel des Monnaies) in Paris near Pont Neuf on the left bank of the Seine.

The CNCS is a 20-minute walk from the center of Moulins, on the left bank of the Allier, past the terns nesting along the river from April to early August. (The name Moulins refers to the mills that were once here.) On the approach the building appears rather sparse and uninviting. But the CNCS is appropriately theatrical in the presentation of its exhibitions, and there’s a nice airy brasserie inside.

While much of the CNCS’s public space is dedicated to its temporary exhibitions, the center also presents a permanent exhibition of the Noureev (Nureyev) Collection. That exhibition displays artifacts from the life and career of Rudolf Noureev (Nureyev) (1938-1989) the danceur étoile who, in the 1980s, danced with the Paris Opera Ballet and became its director (1983-1989).

In addition to its exhibitions, the CNCS is an important resource center open to stage professionals, researchers and the general public.

Shall I compare thee, Moulins, to a summer’s day?

Perhaps not, but the sun needn’t be at its peak for the curious traveler to visit a lesser-known region such as Moulins and its surrounding.

* * *

The building blocks for making a day or more of Moulins and the surrounding area of Le Bourbonnais include the following:

National Center for Theatrical Costumes and Scenography, Centre National du Costume de Scène. Tel. 04 70 20 76 20. Open daily 10am-6pm (until 6:30pm in July and Aug.). Closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Tickets: 6€ for entrance to both the temporary and permanent exhibitions. Free for children under 12. For several weeks between exhibitions only the permanent collection is visible.

Moulins Tourist Office. 11 rue François Péron. Tel. 04 70 44 14 14

Choice café: Le Grand Café, 49 Place Allier. Tel. 04 70 44 00 05. An Art Nouveau café-brasserie whose 1899 décor is listed as a historical monument. Open Mon.-Sat. 8am-11pm.

Choice restaurants:
– Le Grand Café (see above)
– Le 9/7, 97 rue d’Allier. Tel. 04 70 35 01 60. Olivier Mazuelle serves fresh market fare in the center of town. Closed Sat. lunch, Sun., Mon. dinner.
– Le Trait d’Union, 16 rue Gambetta. Tel. 04 70 34 24 61. Trait d’union, meaning hyphen, refers to the link that chef Vincent Hoareau seeks to create a link between classicism with modernity. Closed Sun., Mon.
– Hôtel de Paris (see below).

Choice hotel: Hotel de Paris, 23 rue de Paris. Tel. 04 70 44 00 58. A 4-star hotel with 32 rooms and suites, AC, spa, gastronomic restaurant (opening Sept. 2014), brasserie. Member of Chateaux & Hotels Collection.

Others sight in Moulins:
– Maison Mantin (Mantin Mansion). The home of an upper-class resident (a bourgeois) of the late 19th-century left more or less as it was and according to his will.
– The flamboyant Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral of Moulins and its late 15th-century/early 16th-century triptych of the Virgin of the Apocalypse.
– Le Jacquemart, a15th-century belfry.

Near Moulins:

– Souvigny and its Romanesque abbey church containing the tombs of the Dukes of Bourbon.
– Saint Menoux Church, another beautiful Romanesque church, and its legend that sticking ones head in the hole of the saint’s tomb will render the simple-minded more intelligent.
– Bourbon-l’Archambault, an old spa town containing ruins of a fortified castle.
– Vineyards of Saint-Pourçain, a little-known appellation using Gamay and Pinot Noir for the reds and rosés and Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tressallier (a local grape) for the whites.

See this companion article about sights, food and drink in Moulins and the surrounding region: Tasted, Tested in Allier.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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The lucky few who are able to reserve before September 15 for a Friday-to-Sunday a slot to climb the 300 steps (about 16 stories) of the Tour Saint Jacques, the flamboyant Gothic bell tower near Chatelet, will be rewarded with a view that rivals that from the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral but with the added value of giving a more sweeping eyeful of the heart of the Paris and a 360° panorama from the center of the city.

For a view of the view click here.

The tower is the only remnant of the Church of Saint James of the Butchery, which was a point of departure for pilgrimages on the route (via Tours) to Compostalla, Spain.

Built 1509 to 1523,  the tower owes its current clean and visitor-friendly state to a restoration completed in 2009, 150 years after its last major restoration. The church itself was demolished and its stone blocks sold off in 1797. Now, in a test-run, the tower is open to visitors by reservation Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 10am to 5pm, from July 5 to September 15.

Claustrophobics and those suffering from vertigo should abstain and therefore won’t then get a chance to see the view or the symbols of four Evangelists and of Saint James the Greater atop the 177-foot tower, but all passersby admire the tower from its base, where the mathematician-scientist-philosopher-theologian Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) stands guard. Pascal, a pioneer in the development of the barometer, conducted studies on air pressure and gravity at the tower. A weather station was installed atop the tower in 1891, which is around the time that Gustave Eiffel began studying air resistance and meteorology at his own tower further down the river.

The City of Paris has authorized the association that operates the lesser-known Tour Jean sans Peur / John the Fearless Tower to organize and conduct the visits at the Saint James Tower.

The visits last about 50 minutes for groups of 17 people a time. You can reserve:

– as an individual by getting in line (very early) on the day you wish to visit. Entrance: 6€ per person, free during Heritage Days, Sept 14 and 15.

– as a pre-constituted group of up to 17 people by making a request to tjsp@wanadoo.fr. Group fee: 100€.

Children under 10 are now allowed up. Visits can be cancelled due to inclement weather. The tower is located at 39 rue de Rivoli, 4th arr., metro ChateletComplete information in French can be found here.

If all goes smoothly this summer, subsequent plans will be made to open the tower to the public.

Though less spectacular, the Tour Jean Sans Peur, built 1409-1411, is remarkable as the last vestige of the Paris palace of the powerful Dukes of Burgundy. That tower is located at 20 rue Etienne Marcel (near rue Montorgeuil) in the 2nd arrondissement. With a guide or proper documentation (available on site) it provides a wonderful introduction to 15th-century French politics, the Hundred Years War with the English and the civil war between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, and the association that operates the tower organizes fascinating temporary exhibits there about various aspects of medieval life (warning: the exhibits are heavy on reading, light on displays). Those suffering from claustrophobia or vertigo will be at ease in this tower, but uncurious travelers willing to use their historical imagination might wish to abstain. You might test your own curiosity beforehand by deciding whether or not you’re impressed by this stone “outgrowth” from the stairwell:

Or this 15th-century toilet.

See www.tourjeansanspeur.com for opening dates and times and information about the current exhibition.

The post An Extraordinary View Over Paris Becomes Accessible to the Public appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I understand that only the pope is infallible and that his eyes can’t be everywhere, but the next time you’re printing up a poster to place in front of the most visited monument in the world’s most touristed city please consider sending it to me first to be proofread.

Though I am not one of your faithful, I have spent many precious moments with you and your sisters, each more lovely than the next, and so I will gladly provide my services free of charge in exchange for a few earnest prayers.

Rest assured: I am not mocking you—certainly not in the way that someone has recently ridiculed poor Corneille up on the hill near the scant relics of your beloved St. Geneviève, patron saint of this lovely city with the sad sky.

Forgive me then for drawing attention to your little mistake… but perhaps not too quickly, for as Corneille himself wrote:

Qui pardonne aisément invite à l’offenser.
He who forgives easily invites offense.

Respectfully yours,

Gary
May 19, 2013

P.S. Break at leg at the concert — or Merde, as the archbishop might say.

The post Dear Notre-Dame: A Letter for Pentecost Time appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.