In Rouen, the fabulous story of the cathedral spire, victim of a fire in 1822

The spectacle is Dantesque. A crowd watches helplessly as the spire of Notre-Dame burns. Help is arriving. Several pumps water the cathedral, which has become a “Etna in flames”, according to one observer, its gargoyles spew molten lead. In two hours, the spire collapsed…

Does this remind you of anything? No, it is not about the Notre-Dame de Paris disaster of April 15, 2019. It is September 15, 1822 and it was the Rouen cathedral which caught fire, after being struck by lightning, during of a dry storm.

A tragedy which almost spread to the entire building and its surroundings, as recalled in a fascinating exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen (1). «The spire, then a wooden pyramid covered in golden lead culminating at 135 meters high, threatens to set the city on fire by falling on a house attached to the monument. says Diederik Bakhuys, curator of the exhibition. A small painting by Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois, recently entered into the museum's collections, bears witness to this disaster glowing in the night. But thanks to the firefighters, the fire was finally brought under control. The coverings of the choir, the transept and the nave over a third of its length have disappeared.

An iron arrow, heresy!

A vast project was then launched to rebuild the Gothic cathedral, whose vaults were coated with clay to waterproof them and protect them from the rain. But it is the arrow which is at the center of the subject of this route, brief but dense, organized as part of a campaign to highlight the collections of Rouen cultural institutions (2).

Excavating works from the reserves of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Drac de Normandie and the cathedral itself, the exhibition highlights the unprecedented nature of the initiative of Jean-Antoine Alavoine (1778-1834): erecting a spire neo-gothic cast iron. Heresy, scream its many detractors! «Why this material? Quite simply because it doesn't burn if it's struck by lightning.”explique Diederik Bakhuys.

But that's not the only reason. «Should we not use the progress of science by applying it to monuments which belong to the history of the country? “, asks Alavoine, in a reflection inspired by the industrial revolution which would perhaps still calm today's heritage purists… But this pioneer of metal construction will never see his project completed.

“Extravagant attempt by some fanciful coppersmith”

The project, begun in the years following the fire, was not completed until 1884, suffering delays and stoppages due to the political upheavals of the 19th century. Throughout its construction, narrated using plans, metal models and other chimeras submitted during the work in progress, the spire will continue to be the target of jokes. Flaubert describes it as «extravagant attempt by some fanciful coppersmith», Maupassant «surprising bronze needle, ugly, strange and disproportionate».

Culminating at 151 meters, the terminal cross topped by a rooster, the spire made the cathedral the tallest building in the world for four years, before being dethroned by Cologne Cathedral. Today it remains the third tallest church in the world, but above all one of the great milestones of metallic architecture, “as important as the Eiffel Tower”, soulful Diederik Bakhuys.

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► Where is the work on the arrow?

After resisting bombing in 1944, the spire gradually deteriorated. “In 1974, it became unstable to winds of more than 180 km/h», explains Richard Duplat, chief architect of historic monuments in charge of the monument. It is then lined with a 300-ton corten steel structure which resists gusts well, but not the salt waters they carry… A restoration project, long and complex due to exposure to the wind, is therefore launched in 2016 in order to restore the entire exterior surface of the spire and its reinforcement, strip traces of lead from the original paints and repaint the spire in its 1910 green color. The work should be completed in 2027, barring storms and accidents, like the small fire last July…