Tragedy has struck at the beating heart of French culture: a fire destroyed the roof and Gothic spire of Notre-Dame cathedral
Hi again, this is Jeff, and welcome back to Plain English. Today’s episode is really long, so let’s not waste too much time up front. Real quick, the episode number is 149, so you can find the full transcript, and all the translations into French, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Japanese on the web site at PlainEnglish.com/149. I’d also like to remind you to join our e-mail list for extra English learning resources. You can join that by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail . And remember we have a new feature on the program today—JR’s song of the week. So stay tuned for that toward the end of today’s episode.
A stunned France mourns damage to Notre-Dame cathedral
It was the Monday of Christianity’s Holy Week: the week between Palm Sunday and Easter. The final Mass of the day was being celebrated in Notre-Dame cathedral when a fire alarm went off around 6:30, causing all the worshipers to evacuate. They had no way of knowing, as they walked quickly out, that that day, that moment, would divide the history of Notre-Dame into a “before” and an “after.”
The fire that set off that alarm would ravage the 850-year-old landmark. By the time the blaze was completely extinguished, fifteen hours later, it had badly scarred one of the most important religious landmarks in the Western world, delivering a blow to believers and non-believers alike, and striking at the heart of the French nation.
Orange flames consumed the roof of the cathedral and sent a plume of thick smoke into the air above Paris. Thousands of people gathered at Paris’s City Hall, the Hôtel de Ville, and watched in disbelief as one of the symbols of France and Catholicism went up in flames. An hour into the fire, the famed Gothic spire, the tall structure that was visible from all across Paris, collapsed and fell into the cathedral’s interior.
Notre-Dame had survived a lot before: two world wars, including the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940; looting during the French Revolution; ransacking during religious wars; the full history of disease, famine, and war that characterized Europe over the centuries. However, this was the worst trial yet in its almost thousand-year history. Onlookers in Paris, and, by that time, around the world via television, wondered: How could Notre-Dame survive a fire this big, this bad? How could France?
Somehow, the great cathedral survived, and so will France. By Tuesday morning, Parisian firefighters announced the fire was out. The spire was long gone: it crashed through the ceiling and landed in a smoldering pile near the altar. Much of the roof was also destroyed. The fate of the priceless relics and artwork inside was unknown, but during Tuesday it became clear that the famed limestone towers and the main structure of the cathedral would survive. The worst had been avoided, but just barely. Parisian authorities said the cathedral was within 15 to 30 minutes of damage severe enough to cause the whole building to fall.
For hours after the blaze, stones fell off the sides of the building onto the surrounding streets. There are still questions about the building’s structural integrity. The stone exterior was heated during the fire, and then doused with water—both factors that could weaken the building. But it was still standing.
How did this happen? During the following week, more details became clear. Notre-Dame was undergoing a €150 million restoration, and there was scaffolding near the Gothic spire and the roof. Investigators now believe an electrical short-circuit started the fire in the roof, near the spire. It was the worst possible place for a fire to start.
Here’s why. The cathedral had a lead roof. Lead is a heavy, durable metal, so it needed a strong support system underneath it. The original artisans who built the cathedral created a complex network of strong wooden beams to hold up the heavy roof. Each wooden beam was cut from a different oak tree, so architects gave this section of the cathedral a nickname: “the forest.” The forest was always invisible to visitors, but many architects consider it to be the most ingenious and beautiful part of the cathedral. It was also the most fire-prone. Those wooden beams were part of the original construction of the cathedral, and have dried out over the centuries. There were no firewalls to stop the spread of flames. Dry wood, plenty of air, inaccessible to firefighters: it was a recipe for disaster.
There’s more. Notre-Dame was not equipped with the fire-prevention safeguards that are in place in more modern buildings: things like sprinkler systems and firewalls. These protections have been added to other ancient structures in Europe, but they were not added to Notre-Dame. In part, this was done on purpose: they feared that adding electrical wiring for things like smoke detectors and sprinklers was a greater risk of starting a fire. There is also the natural desire not to make alterations to a historical monument.
There is some good news. An art historian from Vassar College in the United States captured every detail of Notre-Dame’s construction using laser-image technology in 2015, and it is all recorded in a digital archive. To capture all this information, he set up a precise laser in fifty locations in the building. The laser would sweep around in all directions, measuring the time it took for the beam to return. When put together, the observations from all those laser scans created the most detailed 3-D image of the cathedral possible. The project collected over a billion data points, and the image is accurate to within five millimeters. The images will be used in the reconstruction, to make it as true to the original as possible.
Notre-Dame cathedral is known as a symbol of Paris and the French nation. About 13 million people visit each year, making it the most-visited tourist attraction in France, more popular, even, than the Eiffel Tower. It was constructed on a small island, Île de la Cité, in the river Seine. Construction began in the year 1163, and it was completed in 1345, almost two centuries later. Thousands of artisans toiled for years, never to see the completed product. It is considered one of the finest examples of Medieval Gothic Architecture and is known for its decorative gargoyles and the flying buttresses that hold up the cathedral’s walls. Paris’s Point Zero, the spot from which all distances in Paris are measured, is just outside.
Notre-Dame was not always well-preserved. In the early Nineteenth Century, it had fallen into disrepair—so much so that the French novelist Victor Hugo wrote a novel intended as a call to preserve the old cathedral. The novel was called “Notre-Dame of Paris,” and was later published in English under the title, “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.” The novel did indeed focus attention on the cathedral’s history and beauty, and it underwent a series of preservations in the decades since. The novel was later popularized by the Disney movie of the same name.
French President Emmanual Macron, often seen as aloof and disconnected from the French people, rose to the occasion and struck exactly the right tone. In a message to the French people, he said he knew the sadness and trembling inside that the citizens of France were feeling, adding that Notre-Dame was is the epicenter of French life. He pledged that Notre-Dame would be reconstructed within five years. Although France is a country without a great tradition of private philanthropy, within hours of the blaze, businesses and individuals had pledged over €1 billion toward its restoration.
Speaking of that roof. I was reading an article that was describing the huge beams used to build it. Remember, it was original to the building. And in order to get beams strong enough for the job, the architects at the time needed to find trees that were already about 300 to 400 years old at the time. Think about that: the part that burned was from trees that were already 400 years old, 850 years ago. Do the math: that wood was created, it grew out of the ground, starting eleven-hundred or twelve-hundred years ago.
There is one part of this story that I didn’t talk about in this episode, and that is the heroic efforts of the firefighters to save the historical treasures that had been in Notre-Dame when the fire broke out. It’s an incredible story, what they did, and I didn’t want to try to fit that all into today’s episode. So we’ll do an episode about that in the next few weeks—not Monday, but maybe next week or the week after.
I want to say hi to a couple of listeners today. First, big hello to Manuela from beautiful Medellín, Colombia—you know that’s one of my favorite places I’ve visited. Manuela lives in the US now and she works as a nanny for four eleven-month-old kids. Talk about having your hands full! Imagine looking after four little one-year-olds. Manuela sent me a great audio message saying that learning English makes her day a little easier, and Plain English is a part of that. So I wanted to say thank you to Manuela for sending me that note.
Also a quick hi to Ismael from Rio; he’s studying actuarial science. And Lineiker, a Cubano who is living in Miami. He’s having trouble finding English speakers to talk to in Miami! Can you believe that? I’m glad to help, whether you’re in the US or abroad. If you’d like to connect with us, send me an email to [email protected] or connect on WhatsApp with the number +1 312 967 8757 .
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