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  • 2019-04-22 (xsd:date)
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  • Were Oak Trees Planted at Versailles for the Purpose of Repairing Notre Dame? (en)
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  • On 15 April 2019, the historic Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris suffered a catastrophic fire that destroyed most of the structure’s wooden-framed roof and spire. In the days that followed, a feel-good story about a forest of oak trees grown at Versailles for the express purpose of repairing or replacing the wooden spire took off on social media. These are the Versailles Trees state several posts with pictures of tall trees, They are ready. The claim appears to have its origins in a thinly sourced Twitter thread authored by a user named @_theek_, who tweeted this narrative on the day of the fire: When asked by other Twitter users for the source of this information, he said, It was a lecture I attended at Versailles on disaster recovery and long term planning. Once per century events have to be planned for in a city where structures are a thousand years old. Officials at Versailles, however, told Times of London religious affairs reporter Kaya Burgess that there was no basis in fact for this claim: The claim, despite its categorical rejection by multiple officials at Versailles, appears to have gained further exposure from a British parody account named General Boles, which tweeted a picture of palm trees in Sri Lanka with a claim that mimicked the original: The claim even made it into a 17 April 2019 story on Forbes.com about potential ways to rebuild the Notre Dame roof: The supporting link for this claim is an Imgur post that used as its source the same @_theek_ Twitter thread that appears to have started this rumor in the first place. Though no evidence exists that trees were planted 160 years ago at Versailles for Notre Dame repairs, there are elements of fact within the claim. For example, the Cathedral did fall into disrepair during the French Revolution and was in some cases desecrated by rioters, as reported by the BBC: A spire built in the 13th century was removed during this period of history as well, and it was not replaced until several decades later. The spire was, indeed, completed roughly 160 years ago, which is consistent with the viral claim. Between 1844 and 1864, following a revival of interest in the building thanks to Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a massive renovation project included the spire that was burned in 2019: However, because we can find no independent verification for the claim that trees were planted at Versailles in conjunction with this renovation project, and because officials at Versailles deny that it has any basis in fact, we rank this claim false. (en)
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