Come to think of it, all the same, it’s boring and a bit expensive.
What will we do on rainy days, with a backpack on our heads, running to find refuge and falling on a proud turnstile, breaking our shins for want of a wallet? And on blue days, seeking coolness under the Gothic vaults to watch the sun fall in love with the stained glass windows? And the mornings of joy or sadness, riddled with despair or filled with happiness in search of a candle to light, for a yes or for a no? What will we say to the sixteen oxen who have reigned supreme for centuries on the towers of Laon Cathedral? That they have to pay for cover and promontory? To the cherubs, the gargoyles, the stone devils, the saints and blesseds, the dolphins, pelicans, deer, does, plants and doves which proliferate by the thousands on the friezes, tympanums, vaults, pediments and columns? It’s time to show your ticket?
Can we imagine in Chartres making Charles Péguy pay, “all powdery, all muddy, rain between your teeth”pilgrim from Beauce whose paths he took, and arrived this evening, in front of the cathedral, this “endless rest for the lonely soul” ?
Of course, Dati will say, this ticket is only valid for the tourist, the stroller, the Parisian walker. No for the faithful, Catholic and believer. So what? By what right? What will the questionnaire be? What will the criteria be? Would Balzac have been refused entry to Saint-Gatien de Tours, he who pushed open the doors, tired, wandering, completely at his own pace?doubtful future” and to his “fallen hopes” ? And in 1913, would we have reimbursed Paul Claudel who attended vespers “having nothing better to do”“standing in the crowd, near the second pillar”before being turned around, touched in the heart by conversion? And to the poor, the migrant, the young girl and the old man who seek an exchange, a prayer, silence or a handful of beauty? That the cathedral is not intended for them? That it is a museum like any other? That its swirls of incense and the sediment of its prayers are reserved for happyfew who put their hands in their wallets? What is more beautiful, however, than its wide open doors, its rebellious gratuity and its colorful crowds?
Certainly, in Spain, Italy, Germany and even here in Belgium, bishoprics have paid, in whole or in part, for access to certain places of worship. How sad it is, a bit bourgeois. Wouldn’t that deserve a bit of disobedience and a stick of dynamite? Because neither to Catholics, nor to the cultural, nor to the abbots, nor to the rich, nor to the State: the cathedrals belong to no one, except to Hope which cannot be traded.
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