SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Just outside of Paris, a group of stonemasons and metalworkers are using the latest in technology to allow people to help rebuild a part of French history - a spire on the Saint-Denis Basilica, which has been around for some 800 years and is better known as the place where the kings of France have been buried across the centuries. Carolyn Lamboley brings us this report from the city of Saint-Denis.
AUTOMATED VOICE: (Speaking French).
CAROLYN LAMBOLEY, BYLINE: Basilique de Saint-Denis is the stop-before-last on line 13, a metro line linking gritty suburbs most Parisians try to avoid.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking French).
LAMBOLEY: When you step outside the metro, you'll find the same men selling contraband cigarettes day after day.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking French).
LAMBOLEY: Many people in Saint-Denis live under the poverty line. But just around the corner from the metro is a plaza that looks like it could be on a postcard sent from a picturesque town in France. Towering above the square is the Basilique de Saint-Denis church. It has only one spire on the right side. On the left is an open space where the other one once stood. It was hit by lightning and a tornado in the 1800s.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE RUNNING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking French).
LAMBOLEY: In its shadow, a stonemason is working to fix that.
NATHALIE PASCO: (Speaking French).
LAMBOLEY: This is Nathalie Pasco, a stonemason by trade. She says she mainly works with tools that were available in the 12th century, chisels and hammers.
PASCO: (Speaking French).
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
LAMBOLEY: She's showing a group of students how stonemasons used to work.
PASCO: (Speaking French).
LAMBOLEY: But techniques have changed, and Nathalie will just be in charge of the finishing touches. While she and her colleagues drum up interest in the project, others are working behind the scenes, using technology to generate digital stones and money.
JULIEN DE SAINT JORES: To rebuild the tower and the spire of Saint-Denis, we need plans, and we have the original plans of Viollet-le-Duc and Francois Debret.
LAMBOLEY: That's Julien de Saint Jores. He's the head of the association that's spearheading the rebuilding of the spire.
DE SAINT JORES: We used those plans to make digital plans of every single of the 152,800 stones. Those digital stones are actually necessary for the stonecutters.
LAMBOLEY: To help build the spire, people can buy a digital stone as an NFT, or non-fungible token, which is used to sell digital art or other objects.
DE SAINT JORES: The patron will know when his stone is extracted from the quarry and when it comes to the workshop of the stonecutter and when it will be masoned by the mason.
LAMBOLEY: Those patrons will be helping preserve the memory of St. Denis, a patron saint whose story is intertwined with that of the basilica.
DE SAINT JORES: According to the legend, St. Denis was decapitated in Montmartre around the end of the third century.
LAMBOLEY: He had been sent to convert the Gauls - the legendary ancestors of the modern-day French people - to Christianity.
DE SAINT JORES: He took his head in his hands and walked to Saint-Denis, where he died.
LAMBOLEY: Since that time, it has also become the final resting place of the kings of France - over 40 of them - going back to the seventh century. Despite that, getting funding was a struggle, especially after Notre Dame was ravaged by fire in 2019.
DE SAINT JORES: Everybody gave money for Notre Dame. At that moment, we had discussions with the districts, saying that, OK, Notre Dame don't really need your subvention, but we need it. And that's exactly what happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
LAMBOLEY: Julien leads the way upstairs to the roof. From here, you can see Paris. Soon enough, people will be able to see the new spire from the French capital. For NPR News, I'm Carolyn Lamboley in Saint-Denis. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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