Faulty bikes hampered rescue of Notre-dame’s Crown of Thorns
PARIS’S much-derided cycle rental scheme almost led to catastrophe during the Notre-dame fire as the only man with the keys to the cathedral’s Crown of Thorns relic was kept at bay by a string of faulty bicycles.
The incident is part of a “cascade of malfunctions” before and during the devastating blaze recounted in the documentary film Notre-dame brûle (Notre-dame is burning), by Oscar winning director Jean-jacques Annaud.
The film is due for release on Mar 16, the anniversary of the 2019 inferno in which the roof and spire of the Gothic masterpiece were destroyed and the main edifice saved only thanks to the heroic efforts of the Paris fire brigade.
The 78-year old director, who had access to fire service reports of its operation, said an “unbelievable” series of unfortunate events almost led to the entire cathedral going up in smoke.
The cathedral manager alone had the the keys to the reliquary that housed the Crown of Thorns, believed to be the very “crown” placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to the crucifixion.
Annaud said he discovered that the manager had tried to reach the cathedral on a Vélib’, the capital’s bike rental scheme, whose two-wheelers are notorious for often being out of order. In a frustrating setback that would earn the sympathy of many Parisians, several of the models he tried proved unusable, slowing his progress.
He finally returned just in time to remove the crown, which was later placed in the Louvre museum for safekeeping.
“From start to finish, there was a cascade of absolutely unbelievable malfunctions, setbacks and obstacles,” said Annaud, whose 1976 work Black and White in Colour won the Academy Award for best foreign film.
He cited the failure to verify whether fire alarms worked, the lack of video surveillance in the “forest” – the medieval wooden beams holding up the roof – but also the traffic jams fire services had to push through on Paris’s Ile de la Cité.
The caretaker supposed to check for fires also went to the wrong roof – the sacristy instead of the nave – and wrongly announced that there was nothing to worry about.