The last time I saw Paris, her heart hadn’t yet been broken.The cathedral at Notre Dame still stood as it has for centuries. The endlesscrowds outside hadn’t yet been reduced to tears.
This was a year ago, before this week’s awful fire. My wifeand I, and another couple, stayed in some friends’ apartment just around thecorner from Notre Dame. We could see its rooftop from a bedroom window.
Notre Dame was more than stunning architecture, more than a single religion’s gothic soul. People of all faiths gathered there, men in yarmulkes, women in burqas. They gathered each day from sun-up into dark, for Notre Dame seemed the spiritual heart of Paris itself, as much as the Eiffel Tower.
The crowds seemed only incidentally about religion. Some ofthe early reporting on this week’s fire made specific reference to this. Likemuch of Western Europe, the French have stopped going to church. Only about 10percent of the populace attends services.
But Notre Dame, with its complex history, its stunning architecture and its sheer beauty, transcends all of that. To enter its cool, darkened, candle-lit interior seems more than walking into a church; it feels like entering the portals of history itself.
When we were there last spring, the city seemed to spill outfrom the huge building. In its very shadow lay the Seine. Lovers snuggled lazilyalong the river’s banks, two by two, across balmy days and nights. One night,there was a bicycle race through the heart of town that started at 11 o’clock.There were roller skaters everywhere. The sky itself seemed to sparkle allnight long.
But this week it was Notre Dame’s fire that lit up the sky.
Paris isn’t just a city. Its buildings, its streets, itsparks and gardens, its bridges, are all created with such care that each seemsa tender expression of a love affair between a people and their environs.
The city feels like a poem its inhabitants have written to themselves. Every street seems a work of art. Even the old, slightly battered places have an authenticity instead of a sense of disrepair, as if declaring: This is our legacy, and no matter how old or disfigured it is, we love it, like an aging grandparent.
We walked past Notre Dame late each night on the way back toour apartment. There were bistros and little ice cream parlors open all alongits borders.
The four of us were there for 10 days, walking the streets atall hours, and not once did any of us feel the slightest sense of anxiety.Notre Dame seemed the heart of such peace and civility.
Until the fire this week.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, is now in paperback.