Notre Dame

This Article was send to my wife from a friend in Montreal Canada I don`t know who the Author is.
Montreal has a Notre Dame Cathedral, even if it is not a exact replica.


Dear friends,

I wanted to give you another perspective on what Notre Dame means in France.
The cathedral was built in the 12th century on the ruins of a Roman temple. The island on which it is built,
the 'Ile de la Cite' is the core of Paris with the Latin quarter just across the river.
In France, all distances are measured from Notre Dame which is kilometer zero. So, besides the religious aspect,
Notre Dame is at the epicenter of Paris and the whole country.
The irony is that the cathedral's roof burned down when a river flows at its feet. Despite all the reasons given by politicians,
it is hard to understand why not more could be done to save the monument and its treasures.
You man nobody thought they needed higher water canons?
Probably a short coming from electrical equipment used by the workers of the renovation team
is responsible for wiping out 8 centuries of French history.
Not all was built in 1200, it took decades to build Notre Dame and the last big renovation took place in the middle of the 19th century.
In 2011, I went up on the roof. The structural frame underneath the roof was called the 'forest'.
It took 1400 oak tress to built it and you coud smell the wood going up.
That was the core of Victor Hugo's novel and Quasimodo who was supposed live up there.
The bells are huge and they would have caused tremendous damage if they had crashed down.
The bronze statues on the side of the steeple were removed a week ago by helicopter to be renovated. They escaped destruction.
It's like a page of our history book has been torn.