Notre Dame: La France au coeur.

I am chiefly home-based at present having lost a lot of my energy in a rather cavalier fashion! While I await its return, I am happily engaged in rescuing the beloved terrace from its winter woes. My youngest was here a few days ago and she valiantly swept and tidied to set the tone and now, a little early perhaps, May being the optimum time for spring planting, I have been re-potting and planting a few choice plants, at a leisurely pace, stopping often to admire the chimneys, steeples and roof- scapes which make up my privileged view. In fact, et in Arcadia ego, really!

 Et in Arcadia ego.
Nicholas Poussin 1594-1665
First version; Chatsworth House

By that I mean that I feel myself to be in Paradise in this lovely spot though Arcadia, in Greek mythology, signified a wilderness in which the god, Pan, resided with nymphs and dryads. It is also the famous title of a painting by Poussin [1594-1665], a leading French Baroque painter, of a pastoral scene of shepherds examining a gravestone! The first version he painted is in Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, a much-loved venue when I lived locally. The second, quite different, version is in the Louvre. Arcadia, in fact, came to symbolise the pure, rural, innocent, idyllic life far from the city, so my use of it to try to describe my feelings of contentment here is taking a liberty to say the least. My terrace views are of brick and stone; steeples and chimneys; towers and roof ridges; churches and gables. But Arcadia, in its meaning of ‘ideal; perfect’ it is to me!

But, more important than musings on my little patch of delight, is to join the world-wide chorus of horrified dismay and desolation at the Notre Dame tragedy; the frighteningly swift collapse of the slender pointed

\Viollet-Le-Duc's Fleche collapses

ninnineteenth century steeple and the near-total despoliation of the interior [saved by the almost superhuman, timely efforts of the Parisian firefighters] all pierced the hearts of the world. This hugely symbolic cathedral, an integral part of the French patrimony and the embodiment of the French finest national values, has come also to represent the deepest emotions and cultural attachments of almost the entire planet. We all love the sculptures, the fabulous Rose Window, the carvings, the grotesques, the treasures and memorials; the historical associations, but most of all the iconic building itself represents, not only beauty and inventiveness in stone and form, but simply the best, the most beautiful, that humans can create. The utter sadness and helplessness of the horrified spectators worldwide, was literally painful and deep.

Knights Templars burned at the stake.

A friend alerted me to a wonderful glossy magazine produced by Le Figaro, on sale here over Easter. It is entitled, Notre-Dame: La France au coeur. It is sub-titled: Les Grands Heures D’Une Cathedrale; L’Effroi et L’Esperance. One euro from each copy sold will go to the reconstruction fund for Notre Dame. It contains heart-breaking photographs of the fire and degradation but also articles and beautiful reproductions of paintings commemorating many, many important ceremonies staged in Notre Dame over the centuries. The list of 12 notable events over  the centuries includes the first stone of the future cathedral laid in Spring 1163 by the Pope, Alexandre 111; the dissolution of the Knights Templar with many foot soldiers burned at the stake before the cathedral on the 19^th March,1314; 22^nd March 1594, the triumphant welcome to Paris of Henri 1V after five years of warfare to secure his kingdom; a feast of Liberty for the sans-culottes of revolutionary Paris in the re-named Temple of the Goddess Reason on 10^th November 1793; the Grande Parade de Napoleon on 2^nd December 1804; the 31^st May 1864 ceremony to celebrate the complete Neo-Gothic restoration of Notre Dame including the building of the elegant spire in 1859, all under the stewardship of Viollet-Le-Duc; and finally the thanksgiving for the Liberation of Paris on 26^th August 1944 with De Gaulle in triumphant charge. What a panoply! What continuity! 

 Notre Dame during the celebration of
the Liberation of Paris August 1944

The Rose Window in happier times.

 And, dramatically ablaze in April 2019.