LE FIGARO. – During his New Year's greetings, Emmanuel Macron welcomed the reopening of Notre-Dame on December 8, "proof that we are a nation of builders". In your book, you come back to the relationship between the cathedral and political power: it is the place where Gallicanism was founded, TeDeums were sung there at the time of the Revolution... How did this help forge his legend? Does this explain the government's involvement in its restoration?
Maryvonne DE SAINT PULGENT. - It has been the cathedral of power since the beginning. As early as the fourth century, if there was a cathedral on the Île de la Cité, it was because there was an imperial palace. Since its foundation, Notre-Dame has been the cathedral of a very important capital and therefore an exceptional cathedral. The link with power is first and foremost a link of geographical proximity, but which is also reflected in a closeness between the bishop and the king in common battles.
In the Middle Ages, the...
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