PARIS — The project to save Notre Dame started with hundreds of firefighters who worked through the night of April 15, 2019, to contain the blaze and prevent the cathedral’s collapse. They were followed by the restoration teams – more than 2,000 architects, builders, engineers and craftspeople who have spent the past five years bringing the cathedral back to life.

The Washington Post asked some of those involved to reflect on their contributions to a landmark that has stood at the heart of Parisian life for more than eight centuries. Their work became part of the monument’s storied history, and Notre Dame is now a part of their stories, too.

La Blanchardière oversaw a team of stonemasons during Notre Dame’s restoration. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

Thibault de La Blanchardière, stonework

Thibault de La Blanchardière. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

Thibault de La Blanchardière remembers the moment his team of stonemasons took down the first statue at Notre Dame. It was the day after the blaze. Firefighters were still extinguishing smoldering embers. And the statue perched near the gable of the cathedral’s north transept could fall at any moment.

“It was quite a feeling when it reached the ground – a wild moment,” said La Blanchardière, 30, director of operations at the Pierrenoël stonecutting company.

Thus began a phase of assessing and securing the structure, which lasted many months. Workers inspected every stone, tallying what needed repairs and what threatened to collapse. They took down chimeras. They removed statues that weighed tons and stood high above the ground – to be dusted and kept safe during the construction on-site.

“It’s a bit like the work of a surgeon, to stabilize everything that can stay and take away what can’t,” he said.

The next phase felt less dire, but the work was just as meticulous. They picked out stone finishes and colors. They redid joints with techniques that date back centuries. Stones were cleaned with compresses and poultices to make sure they were “degraded as little as possible.” The goal was “that you don’t even realize we’d been through here.”

He said he was grateful “to have belonged to it, to all these people who worked toward the restoration, even if I played my little part.” And he was always impressed “to be able to enter these places of history,” the engineer said. “To have the keys to the cathedral, to open the cathedral in the morning, it makes you dizzy.”

He hopes to return to Notre Dame after the ceremonies have ended and the crowds have passed. “I think I will go see it with a calm mind, all these places that were a part of my life, to see it more serenely.”

Loisel’s work helped preserve the cathedral’s stained-glass windows. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

Claudine Loisel, stained glass

Claudine Loisel and her colleagues arrived at Notre Dame after the fire to collect what looked like debris, but to the researchers at France’s Historical Monuments Research Laboratory, these were “vestiges” of the cathedral from which they could take notes for the restoration.

Claudine Loisel is a research engineer who heads the glass department at the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

“It wasn’t glamorous, it was protective suits, hands in soot, respirator masks,” said Loisel, a conservation scientist who heads the laboratory’s glass department. “It was important to learn from these wounded pieces of Notre Dame, to be able to better treat it and to know exactly which bandage to apply.”

The cathedral’s stained glass was largely spared from damage, and its three medieval rose windows were left in place during the restoration. But the panels nearest to the vaulted ceiling had to be removed to prevent breakage while the structure was rebuilt. The windows were sent to workshops across France, where they were delicately dismantled and spruced up. “The image of the restorer who works with a Q-tip, it’s really that,” Loisel said.

Back in the lab, it fell to Loisel to inspect the layer of soot that accumulated on the glass, and, once she found lead, to figure out how best to decontaminate it all. The rest of the 19th-century stained-glass windows were dusted off on-site, with soft brushes and other specialized tools.

Her favorite part of the job, she said, was putting “science in the service of art” and working with so many people “to preserve this heritage that forms our roots.”

As she returns to Notre Dame, now that it’s all done? “I’m happy to tell her ‘Well, we put you back on your feet,’” Loisel said, laughing. “Clearly, she will last much longer than us.”

Gen. Jean-Claude Gallet, firefighting

One of the first calls to the Paris Fire Brigade came from the mayor’s office, reporting smoke rising from the base of the spire.

Jean-Claude Gallet, commander of the Paris Fire Brigade during the Notre Dame fire. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

Firefighters rushed to the cathedral in droves. They wrestled with the flames through the night “when the cathedral could have collapsed at any moment,” recalled Gen. Jean-Claude Gallet, the commander of the brigade at the time. They went to the attic, but when the spire collapsed, they had to evacuate some teams and change course. To save the precious relics, they moved in the dark through swirls of smoke, while molten lead fell from the oculus and the roof.

“They were well trained, they had confidence in each other and they were willing to risk their lives,” Gallet said. “They realized very quickly that the unthinkable could happen if the cathedral vanished, both for its history and for the sense of the sacred.”

As the fire threatened to spread through the northern belfry, Gallet and the brigade’s deputy commander came to the same conclusion: They would have to send firefighters into the tower. Gallet consulted with the French president, while his colleague prepared the plan.

“There was the void on one side of them, and the flames on the other,” he said. “We didn’t know if the firefighters would get there on time to save the cathedral.” In the end, they did.

The fire chief said a chain of people also helped in the rescue – first responders, town hall employees, members of the clergy – “all moved by the same mission.”

Gallet, who joined the brigade as a young lieutenant, left months after the Notre Dame fire at 54 years old. He said he looked forward to visiting the cathedral after the reopening to take his time, because “every person has their own story with the cathedral of Notre Dame.”

Patrick Kollannur, relics and vestments

Patrick Kollannur, a deacon and sacristan. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

For the world, it was Notre Dame. But for Patrick Kollannur, it was also where he went to work nearly every day for eight years. Kollannur is a deacon who served as a sacristan at the cathedral. His job included faithfully preparing the altar for four daily public masses and an evening prayer. “It was quite rhythmic,” he said, until “the fire arrived to put a stop to this story.”

As flames gutted the cathedral, Kollannur gave rescuers the codes to access the crown of thorns, Notre Dame’s most prized relic, believed to have been worn by Jesus. The day after, he returned to help save the liturgical and the sacred: the clergy vestments, the chasubles, the chalice.

Those items are back at Notre Dame now, after about five years that he said felt like “parentheses” in the cathedral’s history.

Kollannur has decided to stay at Saint-Sulpice Church, where he moved along with some of Notre Dame’s services after the fire. “In this tragedy, I found a new Catholic home,” he said.

But his 15-year-old daughter, his eldest, will sing with her choir at Notre Dame, including during reopening weekend. “It will be a great grace for me, because I tell myself that while I’m not returning, my daughter continues to,” the deacon said.

Kollannur helped save liturgical items from Notre Dame: the clergy vestments, the chasubles, the chalice. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

Kollannur reflected that although “many people will come see it as tourists or curious visitors,” he believes the cathedral’s restoration also serves as a reminder that “the spiritual sense will always be there.”

Well before the fire, declining interest in the faith and sexual abuse scandals had put the Catholic Church on its heels. Kollannur acknowledged this made “some people look at the Church in an accusatory manner.” But he described the wellspring of emotion and donations for Notre Dame as “a formidable hope.”

Perhaps, he said, “the message is that humans remain flawed … but the cathedral remains strong.”

Damien Leveau, carpentry

To rebuild the 19th-century spire that crashed and burned, carpenters had to trace and carve hundreds of pieces of oak. But the spire could only be fully assembled at the cathedral itself.

Damien Leveau at the Meaux cathedral, where work is being overseen by the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Île-de-France, which was also involved at Notre Dame. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post

The artisans tested how pieces of the structure fit together at their workshop in eastern France. But those assembled parts of the spire were too big to safely transport to Paris. So, in an act that demanded extreme care and patience, workers had to dismantle it all and send the pieces to Notre Dame to be lifted over the monument, where the spire was rebuilt piece by piece, soaring to a height of 315 feet.

Among those carpenters was 31-year-old Damien Leveau of Cruard Charpente, one of the companies that worked on the spire and the transepts.

“It’s very, very, very precise work. Perfect doesn’t exist, but you have to come as close to it as possible,” he said. “When we carve the wood, we’re pretty confident with what we’re doing, but there’s a little stress at the moment of lifting. And the moment where you see everything fits together, well, it’s impressive.”

The Notre Dame project gave people a chance to appreciate the trade, Leveau said. It was also a chance for carpenters to rediscover ancestral techniques and pass them on.

Someday, he hopes to visit the cathedral with his two small children to share the story with them. “I’d really like to return not only as a carpenter, but with my family, to show them where I worked,” he said. “It was a beautiful adventure.”

Leveau, a carpenter, said Notre Dame helped raise appreciation for ancestral techniques. Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU for The Washington Post