Angel of the Left Bank The Secrets of Delacroix's Parisian Masterpiece

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Chapter 1 The Servandoni Towers "In the world's fading light / The stairs of Delphi meet the void." I am laboring up the spiral staircase in the north tower of Saint-Sulpice. There are squares of paper stuck to the walls. Pausing to read the maxims scrawled on them gives my respiration a certain rhythm and allows me to catch my breath. Who put up those two lines of poetry? The sacristan leading the way climbs the stairs eVortlessly with a spring in his step. He is an impassive, laconic man, but his ability to observe and anticipate makes me think of a hunter. He has a very reliable instinct for anything to do with his church. He can find his way with no diYculty at all through the complicated network of galleries, secret passages, cellars, nooks, and crannies that make up the invisible face of the church. He is the keeper of the keys. He, better than anyone else, can gauge the progress of the insidious disease aZicting Saint-Sulpice: damp. It attacks the stone, crumbles the mortar, eats at the metal framework, and makes holes in the roofing. "Saint-Sulpice is in danger of collapsing, and this is an understatement," warned the mayor of the sixth arrondissement in a letter to the prefect of Paris in 1900. As the construction of the building has never been completed, it has been encumbered with temporary structures for three centuries. At the beginning of the Revolution, poles and scaVolding had still not been removed from the south tower, even though work had ceased a long time ago. The newspaper Le Matin announced triumphantly on 22 January 1912 that "The most famous scaVolding and also the oldest, as its origin is lost in the mists of timethat of Saint-Sulpicehas finally been taken down." French ingenuity and love of tinkering struck again. The art of improvisation, that sin of national pride, wrought havoc here until the 1970s. It was thought that the problem with the building could be alleviated by repairing it with reinforced concrete. In the end, oxidation made the reinforcement swell until it split the stone. The slow destruction of the building is heartbreaking for the sacristan. He coldly analyzes the causes and stages of the disease, speaking in short, sharp sentences that only make his personal distress and feelings of anger all the more apparent. Saint-Sulpice, the poor old ship, can no longer be careened for repairs. It is disappearing before our eyes; it has taken oV beyond our reach. It is going to die and does not want to be in the way. The two thick masts of the uneven towers show the presence of the massive square vessel on the town horizon. The sails of the sloping roofs and the jib of the domes give the ship an elegant momentum, but there is no denying it: the hull is rotten. "Rotten! You're exaggerating. In bad repair, most certainly," my companion exclaims. "You know this church of yours is in a bad way. Why try to cover things up?" I like to provoke him to test the limits of his composure. He pauses on the staircase and watches me panting a few steps below. "Save your breath. The north tower is 240 feet high." I think of Huysmans and Durtal, the main character in La-Bas.1 "Have you read La-Bas?" "No." "You should. It's a satanic novel, and Saint-Sulpice comes into it. The hero does the same thing as we are doing now." "And what is that?" he says politely. His expressionless voice gives no indication of curiosity. With his heavy build and open austere face, he is such an integral part of his church that one would think he was hewn from the very stone of Saint-Sulpi