NOTRE DAME--Notre Dame de Paris--more splendid than ever in the
half-light of this winter day. The veils of the atmosphere redress the
evils that modern restorations have done to this monument; the folds of
the mist soften the sharpness of the retouched outlines: the elements
are more respectful to this masterpiece than are men.
I come upon it at the turn of the bridge. At once I drop out of this
industrial epoch of ours, so poor despite its love of money; my
sculptor's soul escapes from its exile.
The Gothic sphinx rises before me. The strength of its beauty overwhelms
me. I struggle against it and I am broken by it. Then it attracts me
anew with its sweetness; it exalts me. My spirit makes the ascent of
this sculptured mountain. What power in these motionless stones to
create the sense of movement in the mind! What makes this possible?
The mason of genius; the science of oppositions. That whole effect of
power--he has put it in the thickness of the foundations, the enormous
walls, the buttresses. They are as formidable as the tiers of a dike,
as a breakwater planted in the sea. One would say that this church was
built to combat the forces of nature: the temple of peace and love has
the air of a fortress.
One's spirit is weighed down by the bareness of the stone, but stirred
by the height of the structure and the towers; it soars toward them
as toward a world that reassures it; the hard material has become
humanized; the genius of man is at play there amid the lacework of
stone. He has placed there angels, saints, animals, fruits, flowers, all
the gifts of the seasons; it is life in its entirety such as the Creator
in His infinite munificence has bestowed upon him. The Gothic artist
knows that paradise is on earth; he has no need to invent another. The
childish and monotonous heaven presented to us in our legends is nothing
but a poor copy of the marvels of our life.
Let us enter. I tremble. The beauty is terrible. I am plunged into
night, a living night in which I do not know what mysteries are being
enacted--the cruel mysteries of the ancient religions? There are
shimmering rays from the long windows, the rose windows. Hope enters my
heart: there is light here, then? I am no longer alone.
My eyes grow accustomed to this populous obscurity. There is a world
about me, a world of columns. It seems terrible, it _is_ terrible
because of its power, but this power has its _raison d'être_. It
seems frightening to me but it is only necessary. It is distributed
power; therefore it is beneficent. It holds the vault in the air, the
prodigious weight of stone that it maintains aloft, above my head, as
lightly as the canvas of a tent. Marvel of equilibrium, calculation of
the intelligence, how is it possible not to adore you? It is you that
one comes here to worship under the name of God.
The darkness grows lighter; it becomes chiaroscuro. We are in a picture
by Rembrandt, that great Gothic of the sixteenth century. The forest
of pillars divides the nave into spaces of shadow and light. It is the
order of nature which knows nothing of disorder. This I rediscover with
joy: the eye does not love chaos.
I familiarize myself with the people of the columns. I recognize them:
they are Romans. It is the Roman, the Romance, hardly altered, that
comes to receive the Gothic arch. The immense nave which I thought a
forest full of hidden dangers I see, I understand, I read like a sacred
book. The mystery is not that of cruelty; it is only that of beauty. It
grows lighter gradually in order to allow the spirit to approach slowly
the joy of a perfect interior. This solemnity of the nave, this immense
void, is like the bed of a great river; the columns range themselves
respectfully on each side in order to give free passage to the flood of
human piety. It flows like a majestic river; it bears onward toward the
tabernacle, about which it spreads itself like a lake of love under the
rays of the thought of God. Amid the stones the architect has known how
to play the part of the apostle: he has created faith. Art and religion
are the same thing; they are love.