“IF THIS MONUMENT is sooner or later completed,” wrote Robert de Thorigny, a Twelfth-century Norman monk, of Notre Dame cathedral, “no different will ever examine.” The gothic edifice on an island within the historic coronary heart of Paris is maybe not distinctive. But it touches individuals—the non secular and the secular, French and non-French—in unusually highly effective methods. It is a spot of worship, a testomony to human ingenuity and an emblem of resilience. When on the night of April fifteenth 2019 flames engulfed its timbered roof and toppled its spire, the shock and sorrow have been world.
