Sense prevails at Notre Dame

Thank goodness that the French Senate, when passing a bill on the restoration of Notre Dame, added a clause that this restoration must restore the great cathedral back to its ‘last known visual state’.

It is hard to imagine a reasonable decision being made in today’s political and cultural climate. It seems that the more power one possesses, the less one is able to think.

This renders the French Senate’s insistence that Notre Dame cathedral must be restored to exactly how it was before April all the more commendable. It is, however, a shame that such an obvious fact needed to be discussed at all.

In April, the cathedral fell victim to a fire which destroyed a large part of its roof and its iconic spire. This was the cover topic of our third print issue.

Myself and the editorial team noted in our cover article that ‘the leaders of France failed to appreciate from the outset that the mourning which followed this destruction was due to a sense of loss. This reflection of the French people’s deep sense of appreciation for their own history and beauty was ignored, conveniently, by the establishment classes in their crass calls for whatever would replace Notre Dame’s spire would reflect ‘the challenges of our time’ and be ‘more beautiful than before’’.

The Senate has, however, sided not with the Prime Minister and the President, who uttered these two inevitable phrases, but rather with the people of France, who so clearly appreciated Notre Dame for what it had been, not what it could be transformed into.

Indeed, as we noted in the issue, some of the proposed reconstruction designs included ‘a glass roof that would illuminate the space below’, or a glasshouse ‘crowning the rebuilt vaulted ceiling’. This works rather well as satire but was not, however, suggested in a French equivalent of Private Eye; rather, it was uttered, and, considering Macron’s words written above, received, rather seriously.

Thank goodness, then, that the French Senate, when passing a bill on the restoration of Notre Dame, added a clause that this restoration must restore the great cathedral back to its ‘last known visual state’.

I hope they get to work quickly, before some other fool in power opens their mouth with their mind still closed.