Philippe Torreton: "Rouen Cathedral is a living being"

"Welcome to my cathedral".The cathedrals are, in each city, a rallying point, whether a believer or a passing tourist.They are also, for some, places with high emotional value.We collect ourselves a few moments away from the exterior tumult, we pray, we sing, we get married ... This summer, life takes you to meet, through the eye of different personalities, whohave all developed an intimate link with these great ladies, emblematic of French heritage.

Even when you grew up on the Rouen outskirts, far from the city center, it is difficult to miss the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assumption cathedral.Originally from Grand-Quevilly, south of Rouen, actor Philippe Torreton (César for best actor for his role in the film Captain Conan in 1997) has always been fascinated by the silhouette of the imposing building."My parents did not educate me in the Catholic faith, we did not go to mass and they never took me to see her," said the actor.

Damaged during the war

It is a teenager that he discovers her for the first time, when she stands on the way to her university."I stopped there from time to time.She symbolized my spiritual and sentimental wanderings, ”he delivers.

His interest in the Colossus of Pierre undoubtedly finds his roots in his passion for history."It is important for me to know where you come from, to know what happened," he explains.However, Rouen cathedral carries the stigma of the Second World War in it, during which it almost was destroyed.

The first time in 1940, when the city took by the Germans."The Nazis have let the buildings burn and prohibit firefighters from intervening under penalty of machine -gunning them.It is only when the cathedral was threatened by the flames that they were authorized to extinguish the fire.The Rouennais had to be in the same state as the Parisians when Notre-Dame de Paris burned, "says the actor, who often lends his voice to historical documentaries.

The second time, a little before the Liberation in April 1944, when seven bombs crushed on the building, damaging the aisles of the nave and the chapels of the southern collateral."My family on the paternal side was very marked by these bombings," he says.

"There is something living in this cathedral"

The young Philippe Torreton leaves at twenty for the Paris Theater Conservatory and his life as an actor held him away from the Cathedral of Rouen.Much later, in 2019, passing through his hometown for the show's tour I took my father on my shoulders, chance made him reserve a hotel room at the foot of Notre-Dame-deThe Assumption.He then rediscovers it.

"From my balcony, I felt like I was posed on the cathedral.It was so immense and tarabiscotated that it almost mentioned a biological environment for me.A forest of stones, wood, slate that would have pushed into the heart of the city.This building is a human construction and yet, the result gives the impression of having germinated on its own in a sort of anarchy of arrows, roofs, triangles, gargoyles ... like buds which, later, would become towers.There was something living in this cathedral, ”he says.A passionate description that he explains by the shock caused in him by the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris a few months earlier.

Philippe Torreton is not the first artist to admire the building from his room.Between 1892 and 1894, Claude Monet painted his famous series of Rouen cathedrals, from several apartments overlooking his facade."My balcony was not exactly in front of the main facade like that of Monet but more on the side of the Seine.However, I think I had the same feeling as him: this building seems fixed but it is actually moving by light, the quality of the sky.A cathedral is a living being, ”he repeats.

Show and dizziness

An impression that the actor undoubtedly owes to the "disorderly" aspect of the Cathedral of Rouen, considered to be "the most human" of his sisters, for his lack of symmetry.The Saint-Romain tower (on the left looking at the facade) whose construction started around 1145 is indeed very different and older than the butter tower built in the 16th century.

Once inside, the building appears much more refined."This is a large openwork space.The height of the ceiling almost dizzy when looking at the top, "says Philippe Torreton.As a good actor, he cannot help imagining the spectacle of the priest's sermon, at the top of his prechorum, in the Middle Ages."The echo of the sounds bounced on the walls, the rays of the sun filled through the stained glass: the cathedral was a kind of sound and light of the time.»»

Philippe Torreton speaks knowingly, he who was invited to read texts from Péguy, Claudel and Mother Teresa to Notre-Dame de Paris for Good Friday, a year after the fire."Each sentence must be isolated to be understood, otherwise the words collide and it becomes an imbroglio of words.This requires a certain form of scansion for the message to pass.In the Middle Ages, when the cathedral was built, everything was done so that the spirits were based on something greater, stronger than them, "he continues.

What to give him ideas for his next pieces?"A Shakespeare or a Victor Hugo in a cathedral, the idea is attractive ... I happened to dream several times by visiting that of Rouen.But it will be necessary to solve acoustics problems, "he reveals.One thing is certain, Claude Monet is not the only artist that Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption has inspired.

Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-l'Assumption Time: Tuesday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Monday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. The unusual: the butter tower (the one on the right, looking at the facade) would haveInspired the architects of La Tribune Tower, a famous Chicago building built between 1923 and 1925. To see: the gardens of Albane, adjoining the cathedral, taking up the layout of a cloister which should have been built in the 13th century.

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