Antonieta Rivas Mercado, the Mexican woman who committed suicide at Notre Dame

For a long time the Rivas Mercado family and the Mexican government tried to erase the tragic scene from history.

Only one person has taken her own life in Notre Dame Cathedral, and she was a Mexican, daughter of the architect who built Victoria Alada (now known as the Angel of Independence in Mexico).

That February 11, 1931, Antonieta Rivas Mercado traveled to Paris, left her 11-year-old son in the hotel, headed to the parish, sat in front of the image of Jesus crucified, and shot himself straight into the heart with the gun he had stolen from José Vasconcelos, one of his unrequited loves.

Antonieta Rivas was a writer, activist for women's rights. 

A day before he killed himself he asked Vasconcelos "Tell me if you really need me"... He, married and without imagining the power that his words would have, answered him in the following way: "No soul needs another. No one, neither man nor woman, needs more than God.

This passionate and controversial woman had put her fortune at the disposal of the politician, who at the same time used it to found the first Department of Indigenous Affairs in the Secretariat of Public Education, the Ulises Theater in Mexico City and a party hall in the Cloister of Sor Juana.

Intimate friend of the most recognized artists 

Her family was wealthy, Antonieta admired popular culture and worked hard to promote it. She was a close friend of Diego Rivera and Federico García Lorca, and was even the first to translate the work from Spanish into a different language.

On the day of her death, the gunshot was heard throughout the sanctuary; the news of the suicide appeared in the headlines of all local newspapers and an exorcism was carried out to clean the sacred enclosure of such a "sacrilege".

This tragic story inspired the Mexican-French film Antonieta, directed by Spain's Carlos Saura and starring French actress Isabelle Adjani.

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A secret and forbidden love: Manuel Rodríguez Lozano

In 1936, when the concession for his tomb expired, the remains were taken to the mass grave. Several researchers claim that the love of his life was Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, a Mexican painter who married Nahui Olin and whose alleged homosexuality has given much to talk about.

For a long time, the Rivas Mercado family and the Mexican government tried to erase the tragic scene from history. No one wanted a vasconcelista martyr.

The Catholic Church, by the way, continues to deny the evidence of the day that Antonieta pointed to her heart.