I love this picture because it reminds me of several things: the climb up the 422 marches to see Notre-Dame’s chimeras (this one's called Stryge--looks very grouchy); several fun days in Montmartre; the weather in Paris; Centre Pompidou (on the right); and that tall white tower! This was on the rue de Rivoli on the way to one of the main shopping areas on the Right Bank and I walked by it many times. Early in my trip and still being so fresh from the US, I cowered when considering it might be a high-rise office building. Quelle dommage!, I remember thinking—how could they!?But this is actually the 16th-century flamboyant Gothic Saint-Jacques tower, once the bell tower of the long-gone Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie church. It has been hiding behind scaffolding since 2001 and is under restoration through 2009. The stone tower, one of Paris’ highest, has had its share of bad luck over the past couple of centuries—this is not the first restoration.
After incidents too numerous to mention, the Revolutionary mobs ransacked the church in 1793 and threw the tower statues to the ground. Only four symbolizing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John survived—three are in the Cluny Museum’s reserve and one disappeared. Four years later, the church was dismantled for the stone with the stipulation that the tower remain. More rebuilding followed and stones kept falling. During the 1871 Commune, massacred federal combatants were buried in a mass grave in the park close to the tower. These bones were re-buried at the tower’s base when the Metro was built in 1900. They remain there today.
Mismatched and fragile limestone, bad mortar, acid rain, and pollution have led to the current project. Thirty sculptures, stonemasons, carpenters, stain-glass restorers, etc. have several years to do their job. Hopefully, this 21st-century restoration will last longer than the previous ones…
