University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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old St. Germain de Pres nearby? Or was it the College de France, across the street from the Sorbonne? Did the golden dome of the Invalids inspire him? He knew them all and loved them all. Surely, they helped to shape his dream of the golden dome of Notre Dame! And who that has visited the Shrine of Ste. Genevieve can see the side altar of Our Lady in the University Church without recalling the golden reliquary of the Patroness of Paris? And who that knows his Paris can hear the deep-toned bell of our church filling the air with sonorous music and not feel himself in France again, in Catholic France; — standing on the Petit Pont, perhaps, looking over the He de la Cite, and listening to the rich bronze music that rolls out from the spire of old Notre Dame? Paris has long been called the Central City of the world; and the centre and heart and core of Paris is Notre Dame. And what does Notre Dame signify? Something like eight centuries have passed since the foundation stones of that great shrine of Our Lady, that ancient house of Christian worship, were laid. They were laid over the stones of a pagan temple of Lutetia, the Roman Paris; and that Roman temple stood on the site of a Gaulish temple of some forgotten god. There, then, over the ruins of vanished heathen shrines Notre Dame de Paris rose up, to lift the Cross of Christ above the ruins of a worn out paganism; a living and vivifying heart of eternal faith rising over a dead past; the centre of national worship, the fountain source of the first learning that was in time to make Paris the intellectual heart of Europe. That is what Notre Dame de Paris means. Not all the onslaughts of old rationalism, of old materialism, of new pagan- isms and newer heathenisms, have been able to destroy that centre of Christian worship. Though they might violate it, not even the cohorts of Hate, storming its inner sanctuary, setting up a shameless naked woman in the niche of Our Lady, could destroy it. Nothing has been able to destroy it, because it houses the Living God, the Son of Mary. So also, according to the vision of its founders our Notre Dame shall be, more and more, as the years pass, a centre of Christian culture in America. The tradition of Notre Dame is clearly and sharply defined: it is the tradition of Culture, of Faith, the tradition of Catholic France, the tradition of the ancient Notre Dame. Its evidence is on every side of us; and, better still, Ave breath i;l yery air of it. As a matter of fact, we breathe hereabout the very air that some of the greatest of the French founders of America breathed — the voyageurs, the adventurers, the missionaries of long ago, when the best blood of the old

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It is not a matter of copying or of imitation, this atmosphere of the Mother Notre Dame here in our American Notre Dame. So far as that is concerned, our church is neither a copy nor an imitation of the great Paris Cathedral. No, it is more than mere physical resemblance; it is a matter of atmosphere. This whole place is pure French. No one who knows Catholic France would need to be told that our Notre Dame was dreamed of, inspired by, built by, a man who loved his ancient mother, Notre Dame. And it is not the Church alone. Walk over from the lake and look up at Sorin Hall as it stands in its slight eminence among the trees — and you are in the land of Norman towers. It is more than an American college hall that you see; it is some old chateau of the French countryside; some antique family house that has given its sons to that other Notre Dame that has stood like a rock in the midst of age ' old tempests of revolution and desecration. Deep slanting roofs and Norman towers, it is France all over, this Sorin Hall, sheltered under the cross ' tipped spire of the Gothic church. Or take the path that winds toward the Grotto — and you are at Lourdes, kneeling with little Bernadette and looking up into the benign face of the Blessed Virgin. Look from the Grotto, then, up toward the Church. The mansards of the Presbytery; the roofs of Corby; the long lowrunning arm of the Vestry; the flying buttresses, the pointed windows, finally the spire of the Church itself; — what does it all make a picture of? Of Catholic France again; the clustered roo ' s of som old French cathedral town gathered around its Gothic mother. Or, still keeping the church in view, approach it from the rear — and you are coming along the rue du Cloitre or turning to cross the Quai de T Archeveche toward the Pont del ' Archeveche, looking straight up at the noble apse of Notre Dame. You can almost see the flight of the angels, those marvelous life ' like brcni es that mount the roof toward the feather ' Stone pinnacle of the Lady Chapel. Wherever I turned, those lirst days at Notre Dame, it was the same; and the illusion has never worn off. It grows, and with it the consciousness of a tradition, a presence, th?t has stamped itself on this singularly beautiful place of ours. Science Hall with its severe formality of facade and its chimneys, is a provincial mairie. The old Engineering Building is as French as the pavillions of that famous market place so musically called the Halles Centrales. And of what was Father Sorin, son of Notre Dame de Paris and Father of Notre Dame du lac — of what was he thinking when the domed Administration Building was planned? Was it of the Pantheon, the ancient Church of Ste. Genevieve, whose nobly swelling dome dominates the whole region around the Luxembourg Gardens, with the antique cloisters of Cluny and lovely

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world was contributing to the making of the first America. Here LaSalle and his troopers came blazing the trail through the wilderness. Here Denon ' ville made his grants. Here AUouez laid the cornerstone of Christianity in the West. Go to the old Log Chapel back of the little yellow brick house that was the first University of Notre Dame and ponder there the story of that AUouez; the story of Badin, the first priest to be ordained in the United States; the story of Petit and of de Seille. You are on soil that was once as French as the ground under Notre Dame de Paris. These are all French names, the names of men who spent their lives that the glory of the Notre Dame they loved might shine over the New World with the light of faith. Stand by the rock-built monument where Father Sorin and his companions stood, to found our Notre Dame, and still you are on old French soil; you are in the very heart of the French America of the Indian prairies. You are, in fact, within but a mile or two of where LaSalle forded the St. Joseph river; where Father Rebourde, as the story is told in Father Hennepin ' s diary, blazed a cedar tree to mark the way for whatever French adventurers might follow him. And tliat cedar tree is nearer still, preserved in the museum of the Northern Indiana Historical Society at South Bend, mute witness of the courage of hearts that first beat in the shadow of Notre Dame. And mark this strange coincidence: according to scientific judgment, that tree is some eight hundred years of age — the same age as -the Notre Dame from which we take our name. When we call the roll of those early days — LaSalle, Hennepin, Rebourde, AUouez;, La Hailandiere — France speaks in every syllable. The very ground that we call our campus was deeded to us by that La Hailandiere who was Bishop of Vincennes. Vincennes — Terre Haute — Gibault — it is such names as these, names linked forever with all that the name of Notre Dame means, that rim our horizon. And if we con the dates of our history, every one of them once more echoes France: 1679, — and we stand with LaSalle under the Council Tree — and it still stands, in Highland Park; 1690, and we see Father Aveneau establishing his mission at Fort St. Joseph; 1694, Denonville makes his grant, and makes it in the name of the King of France; 1686, most illustrious of all — Allouez builds his chapel, the furthest outpost and the first centre of Catholicity in the West, set up where the Red Man once prayed to his unknown gods, and set up by the selfsame Faith that built Notre Dame where pagan Roman and heathen Gaul had worshipped. From that date, whether we reckon forward or backward, we still remain within the radius of French tradition. The lineage of that tradition is unbroken, from Sorin back through Badin and Allouez — to France; from Sorin back to Moreau — to France. France — the very stones speak the name; France, Catholic France, Notre Dame! ' ■ ' ■ ' ' Also, and by grace of that same fact, our Notre Dame is American, if there be any such thing as American. It is as American as Plymouth Rock, .-•MUK