Vive Paris! Even though her Grande Dame is stricken
It’s been a traumatic week for Parisiens, but Síle McArdle knows the City of Lights can still soar like no other
Today, Easter Sunday, as the world mourns one of its most beloved churches, the burning question is whether Paris can ever be the same without her venerable Grande Dame.
For most of us, believers or not, Cathédrale Notre-Dame is as symbolic of the City of Light as the Eiffel Tower.
Was there ever a building so deeply and publicly lamented, given that no life was lost saving it?
Who among us did not wish – pray, even – for a miracle last Monday night: that the River Seine could perhaps rise up and extinguish the hellish flames consuming the Gothic masterpiece which has dominated Île de la Cité for over 850 years?
Amid the ruination of Our Lady of Paris’s roof, spire and much more, however, there are small miracles – the pre-inferno removal of 16 copper statues from the roof, the salvation of the Crown of Thorns and the golden altar cross standing defiant.
Now we can only wish – pray, even – that expert analysis will deem unharmed her trio of 13thcentury rose windows and that her organ’s fragile windpipes (almost 8,000 of them) haven’t suffered smoke inhalation.
Part of my next magic time-travelling children’s book is set in Notre Dame, where a good-hearted gargoyle and a young D’Artagnan make friends with a pre-teen cherubic Marie Antoinette.
In addition to La Grande Dame, my research has centred around four of the city’s mainstream attractions: Montmartre, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Yes, Notre Dame’s cruel incapacity will create a cultural void, and swell the already huge numbers of
tourists travelling north to SacréCoeur Basilica in the 18th arrondissement.
However the views over Paris from the Hill of Martyrs on which the Basilica is perched will always be worth the wait – and once inside Sacred Heart, the stained-glass gallery and the Byzantine Mosaic of Christ in particular are timelessly impressive.
A visit to Sacré-Coeur is a double blessing, too, with the artists’ haven of Montmartre right beside it. Many claim this cobbled hilltop city-village – whose roll of honour includes Picasso and Van Gogh – has become twee and over-commercialised.
I disagree.
For me, Montmartre will always have an enchanting, creative ambience – no matter how thronged the main square, Place du Tertre, and no matter how many fridge-magnet souvenir shops pop up in the narrow cobbled streets surrounding it. (Do watch your bags and wallets, though.)
Speaking of naysayers, plenty of them decried the Louvre’s pyramid as a modern blight which would wreck the magnificent three-sided symmetry of the museum’s classic French Renaissance design – a debate which raged on long after Ieoh Ming Pei’s bold structure was inaugurated as the new entrance in 1989. Again, I disagree. Yes, Pyramide du Louvre is a true architectural mismatch – but surely there’s something very Parisian about how downright rebellious that is? Vive la difference!
In my work-in-progress book, the Mona Lisa falls foul of Picasso’s mischievous paintbrush while Van Gogh tries to stop him – so seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s favourite work again was a must.
La Joconde is smaller than I recalled, but her draw is infectious and of course I was impressed.
That said, I prefer to spend serious time before Van Gogh’s depiction of his bedroom in Arles on display across the Seine in the former train station that is Musée d’Orsay.
The Louvre offers much more than Leonardo’s Lisa – there are four floors of fascination, with artwork of every hue and nationality, plus a mind-boggling array of sculpture, antiquities, decorative arts and furniture.
My favourite among them is the wonderfully decorated Galerie
THE LOUVRE OFFERS MUCH MORE THAN LEONARDO’S LISA
d’Apollon, home to the French Crown Jewels.
The Eiffel Tower also houses another unique Parisian gem, a dizzying 48 metres below the 324metre tip.
The monument’s first floor is a mere 57 metres up; stand on the transparent platform and glance down if you dare! At 115 metres, the second level generates double the breathtaking city views, albeit with quadruple the stomach butterflies.
And on the top floor, Gustave Eiffel’s private apartment nestles 276 soaring metres above the Esplanade. This real-life accommodation, once Paris’s most lofty address for select invitees, has been recreated by way of waxworks of Monsieur Eiffel entertaining fellow visionary Thomas Edison on September 10, 1889, six months after his Tour Eiffel opened.
It’s well worth braving the butterflies to see it.
Fittingly, Père Lachaise Cemetery, in the 20th arrondissement on the city’s eastern fringe, was my final destination.
Chopin, Proust, Jim Morrison and Édith Piaf are among the famous names buried there, but I had come for inspiration from Oscar Wilde (hero of my second book and featured in the work-in-progress third).
Bitter experience has taught me that it’s very easy to get very lost in Père Lachaise’s 44 hectares.
The nearest Metro by far for a chat with Ireland’s most infamous wordsmith is Gambetta, with lots of decent, non-touristy lunch and dinner options between there and the entrance on Rue des Rondeaux.
It’s fair to say that Wilde’s tomb – a naked male angel whose genitals were swiped by vandals in the Sixties – is the most popular memorial, although in my opinion this bizarre sculpture is simply too angular and stark to reflect our sublime writer’s rounded personality and genius wit.
Still, as the great man himself mused: ‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’
This Easter week the City of Light, which has endured so much violence and unrest in recent times, has faced the world spotlight once more.
On Wednesday President Emmanuel Macron pledged to rebuild France’s most iconic church within five years although restoration experts are already estimating the painstaking work will last a decade.
Whatever about the timescale involved, however, Paris’s spirited and unequivocal message to the world this Easter Sunday is that, in her own good time, Our Lady of Paris will rise from the dead.