“We have all won”, the testimony of Irène Frain

“I discovered you at the age of 6, in the cinema in the film Notre-Dame de Paris by Jean Delannoy. Only one image remained to me: Quasimodo hanging on a grid that closed a kind of cellar. One day, I asked questions about this cellar and someone, I remember, said the word “crypt” which fascinated me and I swore it: if I go to Paris, I ‘will see her.

So I know when I finally saw Notre-Dame “in real life”: the summer of my 14th birthday, in the early morning, on a bus that brought me back from a colo. The driver told us that we were going to pass the cathedral. But the bus continued its race and my dazzling lasted only time to follow its gate. Still, I saw Notre-Dame and that was enough for me to forget Quasimodo and his crypt. Not the cathedral.

Become Parisian, I have often returned to a stronghold there and sometimes, in moments of test. I sat down, I let myself be won by the peace of the place. On Sunday that followed her fire, I went to see her as I would have made a loved one who fights against death on a hospital bed and I cried.

A woman, herself in tears, then seized my arm: “I read your books, it makes me feel good to cry with you.” As gathered by the crazy desire that our joint forces can revive the body suffering from Notre-Dame, we took the hand. And now, it’s done: the cathedral has resurrected in all its grace, always as strong of its message of hope. We won, all won. »»