Paris 2024 Olympics: Notre Dame’s lament, from the flames of hell to the sacred fire of Olympism

Notre-Dame a eu droit à un hommage au début de la cérémonie d'ouverture, vendredi soir. XinHua – Zhang Yuwei

Devoured by flames on April 15, 2019, rising from its ashes in these hours of Olympic high mass: even relegated to a secondary role, Notre Dame rediscovers the sacred fire. It seemed to us that we could hear its complaint.

They were still there, present in mass, just a few hours before the grand parade, to contemplate the majesty of my towers, the supernatural brilliance of my white stones. Bryan, who had come from Colorado, to whisper to his daughters “how much this monument embodies France” ; Daniela, the Spaniard, describing “the inner emotion” that our meeting gave her ; Kevin, the young Alsatian, telling his father that I am“even more beautiful than before”.

The eyes of the world remain fixed on me when they pass through Paris and it is true that it is rather pleasant for an old lady not to doubt her power of seduction. In truth, how could they all believe that I was going to collapse, be swept away by this fire that devoured my frame on April 15, 2019 ? How could they have imagined that nine centuries of history could thus be reduced to ashes ?

A first fire in 1218

It's just that I've seen others. I didn't survive a first fire in my youth, in 1218, and was consumed in a few hours. Battered by bad weather and the Revolution, when I was threatening to collapse in the 19th century, I owed my salvation only to the tenacity of a brilliant writer and his novel that bore my name to convince the government to restore me, already…

At least, when my arrow fell, that fateful April evening in 2019, with a sinister crack, I was able to measure in the Parisians' wet and devastated looks how much they cared for me. I felt this same love in the energy deployed by all these craftsmen and companions to give me life again. A frame made of noble and green wood, taken from the best oaks, rebuilt identically, with tools of the time. My roof reconstructed, centimeter by centimeter, weld by weld, as if to transform this lead of bad luck into the gold of the Renaissance.

No mass to open the Games, like in 1924

And besides that, they made me laugh with their drones and their georadars to measure me from every angle like one of those towers they are now building to send into space. Less than five years for my spire to stand proudly in the sky of the City of Lights. I myself would never have believed it. And yet… I am missing a few hours, a few touch-ups to be totally on time. At the rendezvous of this century.

So I did not open these 2024 Games with a mass as I did a hundred years ago, for those of 1924. I do not blame them, even if I could have done without the supporting role that they reserved for me in their excessive and unbridled ceremony. A few paintings so as not to forget me, certainly, but hasn't the absence of my legendary ringtone left a deafening void ? Wouldn't the real nerve have been to come and light the cauldron there, on my forecourt, almost in this choir that other flames have consumed ?

The symbol of a Paris that remains standing

I might as well tell you, they will never succeed in impressing me, me who has seen everything, known everything, who is so intimately involved in the fantasy of this city. I, who was built by Maurice de Sully to welcome the pilgrims who thronged our roads and to establish Paris as a place of artistic, intellectual and theological exchanges.

This modern and techno capital may proclaim its desire for change and mutation, create a showcase made of glitter and promises, its deep identity will always remain closely linked to the history anchored in its monuments, like a genetic code written in the flesh. The meaning of my presence, at the heart of this pagan ceremony, perhaps lay there: to prove that beyond the wounds, the attacks and the burns, Paris will always stand.

For a few more weeks, it there will only be the Eiffel Tower, this young, slender prig barely 137 years old, who thinks she is the center of the world with her rings hanging from her neck. Let her take advantage of it, it won't last. I plan to very quickly become the most visited monument in France, as it was before 2020. My time will come again.

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