What was lost

by Rick Blechta

Yesterday was a sad day for the world.

The tragedy of losing a building like Notre Dame cathedral — and even though they will rebuild it, the structure will not be the same so I consider it lost — reaches far beyond Paris, France, Roman Catholicism, Europe. Seeing that massive structure, so beautiful in its way, 900 years old, is like a body blow to probably most of us.

I’m certain many of us have personal memories of visiting Notre Dame. After all, it is the most visited building in all of France. I’d like to share mine with you, if I may.

I visited Paris (with my intrepid wife/translator) in September 2008 in order to do final research for my novel, The Fallen One, and of course took time out to visit Notre Dame — since I had to be nearby checking locations around that area anyway. Without having a lot of time, we didn’t go up into the bell towers — something I regret even more now — but something magical happened anyway when we stepped inside the cathedral.

Sitting on a pew at the back of the nave, I was just soaking in the everything there was to see. Being a Gothic cathedral, it just goes up and up. The feeling of being insignificant in such a massive space was overwhelming.

Then an organ recital, of which we had no advance warning, began.

I’ve heard many pipe organs in my time, from small to very large, but the echoing acoustics inside Notre Dame’s vast space added something absolutely unbelievable to the experience. My wife, who doesn’t appreciate organs the way I do, sat there transfixed as was I. Even though we’d only given ourselves a half hour to walk around the church, we listened to the entire performance. It remains one of the most inspiring musical experiences of my life, and was such a gift as it was so unexpected. I was so mesmerized the experience, I neglected to take a photograph of the organ — and believe me, I take photos of everything when I’m doing research. Now I can’t because it’s gone. That glorious instrument was surely destroyed yesterday when the ceiling of the nave collapsed.

Another organ will be built, but it just can’t be the same. Every one is different, and even if they had the exact plans, manufacturing of organ parts has changed even though it was only 150 years old. The mighty instrument we heard that day in 2008 has been lost along with so much else.

And that’s a very sad thing.

Here’s a link to a fine article in The Washington Post on the Notre Dame pipe organ.

The photo above is one I took of the east end of Notre Dame from the Pont Sully which figures in the opening of The Fallen One. It was taken about an hour after that memorable recital. To my mind, the building is far more interesting from the back end. Now much of what you see is no more.