Three Fires

Nantes, Saturday, 18 July 2020, 11 am. Firefighters are still hosing down the façade of Saint-Hervé Cathedral. At 7:44 am, passers-by saw smoke coming out of the rose windowrose window Large circular stained-glass window with stone tracery radiating from the centre, typical of Gothic church façades., and by 10 am the fire was under control.

The great four-hundred-year-old organ turned to charcoal in the organ loftorgan loft Raised gallery in a church where the organ and the organist are placed.. But the fire did not start in a single spot: it started in three at once, the organ loft, the choir organ and the right side altar.

No door was forced. The dean, Canon Yann Le Floch, called the police: if it wasn't a short circuit, someone with a key came into the cathedral before dawn.

Three people know every door and every staircase of this church. One of them knows where the smell of solvent came from.

Sacristysacristy Room in a church where vestments, sacred vessels and records are kept and where the clergy prepare for services. of a French Gothic cathedral after a fire, with smoke drifting in from the nave.