12/6/2023 0 Comments Went above and beyond“Satchel was in and out of the kitchen, answering the phone, taking care of guests with a smile on his face,” she says. But as she watched Smith, she suddenly felt grateful. She had come to Beaumont for a business trip and was already nervous about being away from home. VWĪngela Chandler, an educator from Nacogdoches, Texas, was one of those guests. When that time comes, the relics will go home, to their place of honor in a cathedral that, against the odds, still stands. “We would be happy to turn the page, to recover and go back to normal life,” Préaut says. Until then, its ravaged state is a daily reminder of that terrifying night. It will be shut perhaps until 2024, while its roof and spire are rebuilt. The treasures and relics have been moved to a safe room within the Louvre Museum, and Notre Dame is wrapped in scaffolding and plastic. The two men are among a handful of people who have spent months working in trailers in the cathedral’s backyard, helping to prepare for the mammoth reconstruction ahead. “There is also the trauma of knowing what might have happened.” “There is a trauma from the event itself, from the hours that I spent in the cathedral,” Prades says. As the months have gone by, the memory has weighed on Prades, 44, who has been at Notre Dame for more than 20 years. Indeed, that night was the end of an era for a tight-knit group that had worked together for years at Notre Dame. “I had the impression like it was the end of the world.” “There were thousands and thousands of people just standing on the street silently, in shock,” he says. As their van crossed a bridge over the Seine, Préaut was stunned to see crowds jamming the entire area. Toward midnight, police finally escorted Préaut to city hall, where the relics were locked up for safekeeping.
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