CHURCH WAS ON FIRE BEFORE TOO

NEWDELHI: The Notre-dame (Our Lady in French) cathedral is no stranger to destruction or fire. During the peak of the French Revolution, when French royals were being regularly executed, the crowd had stormed and gutted the cathedral, dubbing it as a Temple of Treason.

In 1804, when Napoléon Bonaparte’s coronation ceremony took place at this same place, parts of the church, which is hailed worldwide as a fine example of flamboyant Gothic architecture, were in such a bad shape that large parts of the structure were covered up for the ceremony. French authorities once almost decided to pull it down. But Victor Hugo’s classic Hunchback of Notre-dame aroused so much love and emotion for the old cathedral among the Parisians that they resisted any more destruction.

This year on February 11, I saw the Notre-dame for the first time. The bone-chilling weather was no deterrent to hundreds of other overwhelmed visitors as well. It’s the original symbol of Paris built 544 years before Gustave Eiffel completed the Eiffel Tower to commemorate hundred years of the French Revolution.

Notre-dame is also the centre of France. For, just before one enters the cathedral, a plaque on the ground says, “point zero”marking the spot from where distances of all places and cities were calculated in the old days. And even as the city of lights has expanded manifold, Notre-dame, on the small island of Ile de la cite, continues to be its geographical centre. If the height of a Paris trip is a ride to the top floor of the Eiffel Tower, invariably its starting point is Notre-dame. It is the most visited monument in Paris, where 12 million people come calling every year.