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precautionpundits opine that the timber framework in
Notre Dame’s attic would never be rebuilt—that
France lacked the oak trees and the savoir faire.
Gourmain manages forests all over the country.
By 11 p.m. he was on the phone with a friend at
the National Forest Office, hatching a plan to
collect the needed wood through donations.
Around that time, Villeneuve reached the
parvis, the square in front of the cathedral; he’d
been on the train and off-line when Viollet-le-
Duc’s spire collapsed. The next day, climbing the
north tower to inspect the damage, he spotted
the copper rooster that had perched on top of the
spire. Sailing free, it had landed on a side roof. A
photo in Le Parisien showed the beaming archi-
tect clutching the crumpled bird to his chest.
“When I arrived on the parvis, I was dead.
Now I’m in a coma,” he told me. “In rebuilding
the cathedral, I’m rebuilding myself. I’ll be bet-
ter when it’s finished.” In September, with the
reconstruction soon to begin, Villeneuve had a
drawing of the spire tattooed onto his left arm,
from the elbow to the wrist.I
N THE SUMMER OF 1998, a Columbia
University art historian named Ste-
phen Murray took me into the attic
at Notre Dame. It was gloomy even in
bright daytime. As we walked through
the lattice of roughly hewn oak beams, the
curved tops of the church’s soaring limestone
vaults spread like gray elephant backs beneath
our feet. Dust pooled in the hollows. From below,
inside the church, I’d never imagined this back-
stage world—the world of the cathedral builders.
At the crossing of the transept and nave, I looked
up into the intricate wood skeleton of the spire.
Last summer I stood once again at the same
location. But this time I was on scaffolding,
looking down into the giant hole the spire made
when it crashed through the stone vaults. The
top of it punched a second hole in the nave; a
third formed at the north end of the transept.
As the fire raged through the forest, triangular
trusses of oak, 32 feet high, toppled like dom-
inoes onto the vaults, and debris fell through
the holes. At the crossing, charred wood and
stone were piled around four feet high on the
cathedral floor.
Within days of the fire, even as Macron was
promising that Notre Dame would reopen in
time for the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024,Custom-crafted
wooden braces
support stone
buttresses and
prevent them
from pushing
walls inward.Rope technicians rappel
from a temporary platform,
removing damaged material.Hazmat crews clear
toxic lead from sur-
faces, dismantle
warped scaffold-
ing, and catalog
fragments.AFTER THE
2019 FIRE
Experts evaluate
and secure the
structure. Lasers
scan for damage.
Even the smallest
pieces of material
are analyzed.Timber fram-
ing for roof
and spire is
installed.Scaffolding is
taken down by
hand to prevent
collapse.2019-2020 2021-2024 2024
Major work,
including roof
and vaults, is to
be complete.All surfaces are
vacuumed. A latex
mask is applied and
delicately peeled
off, removing lead.Workers remotely
control robots to
collect charred
fragments from
the ground.FIVE-YEAR RESTORATION
60 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC