On 9 December 2024 at the Institut de France, the Prix François Guizot-Institut de France was awarded to Maryvonne de Saint Pulgent for her book :
La Gloire de Notre-Dame, Faith and power, Gallimard.
Broadcast live by the world's media, the fire on 15 April 2019 aroused worldwide emotion, testifying to the universal glory of Notre-Dame de Paris, celebrated since the 12th century in texts, images and music. The audacity of its architecture made Notre-Dame the archetypal Christian shrine and the symbol of Parisian elegance in medieval illuminations. Until the Renaissance, it was one of Europe's great intellectual centres, with its doctoral school where Abelard taught, from which the University of Paris emerged and where Western music was invented. Victor Hugo enriched his legend with a literary and fantastic dimension that in turn inspired the artistic modernities of the 19th and 20th centuries. Built at the same time as the Capetian dynasty came into being, Notre-Dame was a place of shared power between the king and the bishop, rivals in temporal power but united against the imperial ambitions of the popes. The first Estates General that Philip the Fair convened in 1302 in Notre-Dame to proclaim the independence of the Church of France from Rome made it the founding place of Gallicanism. Because of its sacred dimension, it was also the place where the monarchy was legitimised, where dynastic events, funerals of kings and heroes, military victories and peace treaties were celebrated. It then found its place in the liturgy of republican power. The Unesco-listed cathedral is the legacy of Viollet-le-Duc's restoration: the debate over its spire, which disappeared in the fire, shows that this great figure of modernity needs to be reassessed.
Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent, born Maryvonne Jeanne Le Gallo, is a French senior civil servant, administrator, teacher and musician. She has a degree in literature and studied at Sciences Po and ENA. She began her career as an adviser to the Paris Administrative Court before joining the Conseil d'État.
Between 1993 and 1997, she was Director of Heritage at the Ministry of Culture, a period marked by a reflection on cultural policy that she set out in her book Le gouvernement de la culture (1999). Since 2007, she has chaired the History Committee of the Ministry of Culture.
At the same time, she teaches cultural policy at Sciences Po and the University of Aix-Marseille III. She also chairs the boards of the Opéra-Comique and the Institut géographique national, and sits on several other boards, including those of the Musée d'Orsay and the CNC.
An accomplished musician, she won first prize for piano and taught music at the Sorbonne. A member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts since 1993, she has also been an editorial writer for Le Point and a producer for France Culture.
Watch a video summary of the ceremony..
