Last Saturday, Hopkinton resident Nick Meserve stood under Notre Dame Cathedral’s rose windows and thought something with so much history and name recognition would last forever.
The day was bright and sunny, the cathedral serene despite the throngs of people taking pictures of the pietas and the paintings. In the nave, hundreds of candles burned.
Two days later, he was visiting the Centre Pompidou museum down the street and across the river when, en masse, notifications began pinging on phones all around. Everyone more or less got the same story – the cathedral was burning. Shortly after, messages from friends and family poured in, asking where he was and if he was okay.
He rushed first to the museum’s windows, which provided a straight-shot view of the cathedral. There, he and others would watch the fire that would eventually burn for 12 hours spread across the roof, taking pictures and crying.
He’ll never forget the sight of the iconic spire falling and everyone gasping, he said.
“It was really scary,” Meserve, a junior at Tufts University studying international affairs, said. “I never thought I would see something like that firsthand; a name I had known since I was a kid, erased just like that.”
Meserve was among the countless tourists in Paris when a fire broke out at Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday afternoon. The blaze destroyed its spire, its roof and its wooden internal structure but spared its twin medieval bell towers, according to the Associated Press.
Authorities consider the fire an accident, possibly as a result of restoration work at the UNESCO World Heritage site that has survived more than 850 years of history.
The cathedral’s famous 18th-century organ, three large stained-glass rose windows and several artworks survived the fire, but will need further assessment to gauge heat and smoke damage, according to the Associated Press. Already, millions of dollars have been pledged to restore the building.
The scene on Monday was like night and day to Meserve’s first experience with Notre Dame. It was one of the many Paris sites he visited during a holiday break while studying abroad in Spain.
He sat in front of the cathedral for an hour on Saturday, reading a book while waiting for a friend. He’d seen grand artifacts and cathedrals in Spain – but nothing compared to Notre Dame’s stained-glass windows, he said.
Also, Meserve took as good a look at the gargoyles as he could, saying he’d “grown up on The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” A tour to see them up close was booked – later, he’d kick himself for not trying harder to see them.
People were shocked and scared in the aftermath of the fire, Meserve said. As he went home, people cried on the streets – or came out of the subway stations and cried out, seeing the fire for the first time.
“I just wanted to go home,” he said. “I had dinner plans with my friends, but we all agreed to cancel. I just went home and processed.”
His host family told him the sirens reminded them of terrorist attacks that have struck the city in the past – an idea that crossed Meserve’s mind before he saw reports that officials believe the fire was an accident.
“This comes at a really bad time for France,” he said. “… It’s such a symbol. To lose it so quickly is really sad.”
But even though sadness still hangs over Paris, life goes on; as he headed into the city, Meserve said it almost seemed like a normal day. Walking near the Siene River, where the cathedral sits on an island, it was easy to miss the charred remains at first glance, he said.
“You just have to keep going,” he said. “… I think it’s something I’ll definitely tell my kids and grandkids about, watching Notre Dame burn.”
(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.)