France says “merci” as Notre-Dame, one of the world’s most recognised monuments, reopens five years after fire devoured its roof.
With three resounding knocks on its doors by Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich, wielding a staff carved from fire-scorched beams, the city’s grand old lady roared back.reopened its doors, its centuries-old bell ringing in an emotional return of one of the world’s most recognised monuments, a symbol of French culture and an expression of the human spirit.“Brothers and sisters, let us enter now into Notre-Dame,” Ulrich said before knocking on the doors, the echoes bouncing around the walls.
Napoleon was crowned emperor here in 1804, a moment captured by Jacques-Louis David, his official painter. Almost two centuries before Disney musicals and Netflix, Victor Hugo restored nobility to the cathedral, which embodies much more than the love theatre of Quasimodo and Esmeralda. He said the fire had offered a reminder “Notre-Dame could disappear, and this cathedral could also be mortal”. Meeting his pledge to rebuild in just five years, he declared the cathedral “even more beautiful than before”.Some had doubted whether his ambitious timeline was possible, given the extensive damage and the fact that the original construction of the Gothic masterpiece, begun in 1163, took 182 years to complete.
Now the opening festivities are over – the other dignitaries have returned home – the cathedral is expected to receive 40,000 visitors a day. Free to enter, Notre Dame boasts a record for being the most visited monument in France before the fire.The difference from its previous incarnation is apparent as soon as you walk through the main doors and across the smooth polished chessboard of a floor.
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