Five years ago, she entered the cathedral the day after the fire to save some 40 works of Notre-Dame. “Everything was in darkness, there was nothing left, no more light, apart from this gaping hole,” she remembers, while standing under this gutted ceiling, alongside battalion chief David Peneaud, who told her had intervened on April 15, the day of the terrible fire. “She’s more beautiful than before, actually.” We have the impression that nothing happened,” slips the officer, “caught by the ceiling” as soon as he enters the cathedral.
The two Paris firefighters wore their outing outfit for the occasion, navy blue suit, velvet kepi and black tie. Tourists rush to take selfies outside with them. Inside, a faithful asks for an autograph from these “heroes” who saved Notre-Dame. “It’s an honor for me,” she told them.
Last mass of the octave of reopening
David Peneaud and Anne-Sixtine Humbert are among around thirty of these “firemen” invited on Sunday for the eighth and final mass of the octave of reopening of the cathedral, dedicated to the firefighters of Paris, to the companions and to all those who worked on the construction site.
“This is the first time that we are revisiting an intervention five years later. This has never happened to me and I don’t think it will happen to me again. As well as the intervention was exceptional (in 2019) this event is also exceptional,” says battalion chief Peneaud, with 32 years of service. “I kept watch over Notre-Dame for four days,” he recalls, assigned to counter a potential risk of explosion due to the surrounding fluids, then at the bedside of the building the following days.
He has not forgotten anything about this controlled fire because he and his colleagues were able to “be there that evening thanks to a collective which trains every day to respond to this exceptional style of crisis”. Some 650 firefighters – none of whom were injured – fought to prevent the belfries from collapsing, which would have led to the loss of Notre-Dame.
“Unlikely” evacuation
Arriving on site on April 16, Anne-Sixtine Humbert, whose specialty is the evacuation of priority works, worked to remove paintings, pack liturgical objects and extract those who could from the building. “When I came home, I felt like I had been slapped. I told myself that it wasn’t possible and yet I knew that it had really burned. It was very dark, there was soot everywhere, there was this smell of burning which remained very present,” recalls the 33-year-old captain.
“What struck me the most was all the little lights, the little candles, which were still lit inside Notre-Dame even though a lot of water had still been poured to extinguish the fire. And to see this immense hole in the roof, we could see the sky through the roof… And besides that, there was this Virgin and Child, to the right of the altar, who was still standing, remained there at the in the middle of all this debris,” she says again. That day, she lost track of time, but “the most priceless works” were saved.
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