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Notre Dame Cathedral is preparing to reopen nearly six years after a devastating fire in April 2019. Almost every part of the cathedral has undergone restoration and rebuilding. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PRIEST: (Speaking French).
(SOUNDBITE OF SIRENS WAILING)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: This month a procession wound its way through the streets of Paris. Hundreds of people carried candles, prayed and sang as they walked behind a medieval statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. The 14th century statue was found intact amidst the rubble of the fire. It was housed in a nearby church while Notre Dame was repaired. Our lady is finally coming home, says seminary student Samuel Dupont.
SAMUEL DUPONT: Well, it's a big moment for the Church of France. It's a moment where the cathedral recovered the statue of Notre Dame. And we've been waiting for this a very long time.
BEARDSLEY: Parisians have watched their cathedral slowly rise from the ashes to its former glory thanks to an army of architects, engineers and artisans from all over France. One of the first steps was rebuilding the roof, whose collapse had left a gaping hole over the nave of the church. The medieval wooden structure supporting Notre Dame's roof was so vast, it was known as the forest.
(SOUNDBITE OF AXES THUDDING)
BEARDSLEY: The forest was rebuilt at a 250-year-old carpentry company in France's Loire Valley, where instead of the whirring of electric saws, you hear the thudding of axes. Fourteen hundred tree trunks were transformed into long beams by hand. Peter Henrikson is a carpenter from Minnesota who heard about an opportunity to work on Notre Dame through the organization Carpenters Without Borders, a group reuniting those who share a love of traditional methods.
PETER HENRIKSON: All these timbers are taken from the round tree to a squared timber - all by hand, all with axes. What's called boxed heart - so the middle of the tree - is in the middle of the timber.
BEARDSLEY: Which makes each beam much stronger. Henrikson says traditional methods are as important as cutting-edge technology in rebuilding Notre Dame.
HENRIKSON: Part of redoing the roof, as it was, is keeping those skills alive.
BEARDSLEY: France has 48,000 historical monuments to maintain. And medieval skills like stone carving and iron forging are kept alive through a program called Le Compagnons du Devoir, or the Companions of Duty. It brings together young people for five years of training and apprenticeships in traditional skills around France. The Compagnon, as they're known, were crucial in resurrecting Notre Dame, said retired Army General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who took command of the cathedral's restoration until his death in the summer of 2023.
JEAN-LOUIS GEORGELIN: You have people everywhere in France working to restore the stained windows, working to find the stones, working for the organ and to build the framework, the spire instrument.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: The collapse of Notre Dame's spire in the blaze stunned those watching from streets around the cathedral and live TV around the world. Despite talk of holding a competition for a new design, the spire was rebuilt exactly like the original - added by architect Viollet-le-Duc during a renovation in the 19th century. Benjamin Mouton is the former chief architect of Notre Dame.
BENJAMIN MOUTON: The spire was a masterpiece of carpentry - something very, very few examples in the world.
BEARDSLEY: This month eight bells were hoisted back into Notre Dame's north belfry after cleaning and tuning at a centuries-old foundry in Normandy. KTO Catholic TV showed the complex operation using pulleys, ropes and chains to lift the bells, ranging in weight from one to four tons. Andre Voegele was one of the Compagnon artisans in charge.
ANDRE VOEGELE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "The easiest solution would have been to use a telescopic crane," he says, "but the outside openings of the bell towers aren't big enough. So we pulled the bells up into the belfry from the inside just like in the middle ages."
(SOUNDBITE OF BELLS RINGING)
BEARDSLEY: Notre Dame's bells pealed for the first time since the fire. They'll ring out again Sunday, December 8, as the cathedral reopens to the public and holds its first mass. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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