Trained at the School of Historical Monuments, the stonemason Michel Chassaing traveled through the forest of Notre-Dame in the middle of the 1970s. This indelible memory evokes emotion and incomprehension in the Haut-Marnais in the face of the blaze that devastated the centuries-old work.
The stone in the blood. Son of Gilbert Chassaing, a stonemason by trade, Michel of the same name caught the virus while watching his father work. Quickly knocked out by classical school, the Chevillonnais took up residence at the Dijon technical high school in 1972, at the age of 14.
CAP in hand and the desire to learn as we breathe, Michel Chassaing joined Paris in 1975, admitted after a drastic selection to the school of historical monuments on rue Saint-Lambert, in the 15th arrondissement, an elitist establishment today disappeared. This training, parallel to that of the Compagnons, made the young man happy: “They selected the cream. Not motivated not taken. There were ten students per class. I left in 1977, armed with a professional historical monuments certificate. »
Trained once a week by the chief architect of Bâtiments de France, it is a certain Henri Test who ensures the daily transmission of theory and practice. “He had the keys to almost all the remarkable buildings in Paris. This is how we found ourselves visiting the petticoats of Notre-Dame, particularly the forest. »
Petanque court and gears
“It was an educational visit. We studied the distribution of loads, or how the roof weighs on the flat stones called copings and which support the frame.” And what a frame. Named the forest because of the number of beams, each of which comes from a different oak tree.
The dimensions are impressive: 100 m long by 13 m wide in the nave, 40 m in the transept and 10 m high. Some woods are already 300 or 400 years old at the time of construction, which corresponds to trees from the 8th or 9th century. The first frame has disappeared, but wood is reused in the second frame, put in place between 1220 and 1240.
Michel Chassaing remembers a very particular astonishment which however has nothing to do with the wood: “In the middle of this incredible meeting of beams, very small under the impressive height of some, what marked me, it The fact is that, although located above the vaults, we could no longer see them. At our feet, a smooth ground, like a pétanque court, made of pigeon droppings.”
Another memorable memory for the apprentice stonemason, the spectacular clock, approximately 5 m in diameter, and its bronze mechanisms, which activate, stubbornly, riveted towards the Ile Saint-Louis. Also, the late spire, made of oak, designed by Viollet-le-Duc, covered in lead, and weighing 750 tonnes.
Evil for good
Michel Chassaing does not believe in the theory of an accident of “unknown cause” concerning the devastating fire of 2019. “I was incredulous at how quickly the fire caught on. Such an old oak doesn't burn like a match. For pigeon droppings, it's the same. To make such a quantity burn so quickly, you need a fireplace, not a cigarette butt, and a large quantity of oxygen.”
Anyone who has become a passionate craftsman of built heritage does not give up: the start of a fire on this type of structure, it smokes, it smells, it alerts the catastrophe well in advance. But it’s a blessing in disguise. “Notre-Dame de Paris could never have been restored as well as this. Here it is, brand new and secure.” Let's philosophize.
Career and pleonasm
Having graduated from the rue Saint-Lambert school in 1977, the young stonemason was not left to his own devices. Companies are banking on young people trained under the aegis of historic monuments. He was offered the job of being a site manager, but the pay didn't match, so he refused.
His father's son (an employee) prides himself on being his own boss. “Since 77 I've been struggling, but it's my fault. In October, I took the plunge and set up my own business in Chevillon. We’ll have to make a name for ourselves.” Relentless, the stonemason will also become a marble worker, and aims to master everything from minerals, from soft stone, to marble or granite.
He acquired a quarry (the famous Chevillon stone, limestone, hard and sometimes less, slightly eggshell, present at the Louvre, transported by boat via the Marne) and indeed made a career too, within and outside the borders of the department.
Now retired, Michel Chassaing has not found a successor to his art, heritage, but rough and muscular, and concludes, as chauvinistic as it is relativist in terms of heritage: “Notre-Dame de Paris is not more remarkable than another one in the end. What can we say about the flamboyant Gothic Notre-Dame de l'Epine, near Châlons-en-Champagne? »
Mass is said, there is something remarkable everywhere as long as you don't have a stone in your eye.
Elise Sylvestre
