Olivier de Chalus was happy in the forest. As soon as he could he climbed there, alone. That maze of oak beams and poles separated from each other by a maximum of 80 centimeters and 110 meters long that supported the ceiling was the corner that most loved the place that loves more than anything in the world. "It wasn't an attic. It was a living thing, brimming with information about the men who worked on the first construction site, more than 800 years ago. I am happy with this race for reconstruction, but at best we can have an imitation of it. The history of the first Notre-Dame has been reduced to ashes ».
It could have been worse, everyone says. This is the common feeling now, after the sadness and the sense of tragedy unleashed by the burning on Monday, we have moved on to a general sense of relief, almost of optimism. The person who more than any other can explain what was irretrievably lost is Monsieur Olivier, the head of the cathedral's 140 engineer and historian, who was about to give his final work, an essay on the construction of Notre- From me. Journalists who in these days asked for information on hidden treasures, assets at risk, were given a phone number, his own. «I started doing the guide fourteen years ago, just graduated. And again on Sunday, the day before the disaster, I thought of how every time I went in I discovered something new, a detail I didn't know. This church has such richness that it never ceases to amaze me. Notre-Dame is a tunnel that from the present brings us into the Middle Ages and in the past ages ».
That tunnel, says Olivier, 38 years old, a practicing Catholic, polished speech and ways of the past that contrast with mountain hiking clothes, closed on Monday at 8.50 pm with the collapse of the roof. «At 7pm I was in a nearby cafe for an appointment with a client asking for a private visit. When I saw the smoke I got as close as possible to the esplanade ». He remained standing for seven hours, "dazed, helpless", watching the fire that was about to take away his reason for living. "I prayed that the flames would not attack the towers. If it had happened, it would have been the end. Through the bell towers, the fire would have been brought from the air down to the church. And everything would be burned like a match. "
The next morning they called him. The most experienced expert was needed to understand what to do with the debris, how to catalog them. The central nave was flooded with water, like a mirror. On the sides of the apse were two piles of rubble four meters high. On the main organ built in 1400 and located behind the counter-façade, it looms once unsafe. «For the rest, everything is in order» try to joke de Chalus. But it's not good for him. «When I entered, the first thing that struck me was the light that came from the gaps in the ceiling. In the sixth century it was said that Notre Dame was built specifically to create a light of its own. I didn't recognize her the other day. That light daughter of the centuries is now extinguished ».
The forest, this was his nickname, but it no longer exists. It was the most accessible part of the original nucleus of the cathedral. "He could talk. The analysis of the wood could tell us with precision when the cut went up again, the analysis of the structure could tell us how the work had been conceived in the 12th century, revealing a genesis still shrouded in mystery. Other than the novels of Ken Follett ... ». The search on those beams cost as little as twenty thousand euros. The cuts to research are not, however, an Italian exclusive. "A shame. Which has no remedy anymore. It is not true that "only a little wood is burned". A piece of history still unknown has been burned ».
One day de Chalus and his colleagues will start talking about their cathedral. "We are all volunteers, we do it out of passion. We can wait. " But it won't be the same thing, he adds. And the construction of Notre Dame will always remain a mystery.
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