Next time you visit Paris, you might want to stop by Notre Dame.  She is old; she is beautiful; she is alive. The stone masons of the 12th and 13th centuries achieved the loft of the nave with stupendous stone towers surmounted by even more stupendous stone arches. When you crink your neck with wonder, you gaze at the ceiling, supported by those mighty arches, the architectural innovation that made Gothic Cathedrals possible. Up there! Then amble outside and again gaze aloft, this time at the slope of the cathedral’s roof, composed entirely of lead plates. Imagine the weight. What you don’t see from inside or out is the space between ceiling and roof, the attic, where a forest of oak beams supports those lead plates..

So things stood on the evening of April 15, 2019 when, perhaps, a cigarette or, perhaps, an electrical spark achieved kindling temperature for the accumulation of duff around the feet of those centuries-old beams. In a trice, all of Paris, all of the world, gaped in horror as columns of smoke and tongues of flame disfigured the evening sky above Notre Dame. Omigod, omigod, this symbol of everything French will soon collapse in total destruction! The windows will shatter. The walls will fall. Disaster!

The footprint of a cathedral is a cross laid on the ground. The long axis is the nave; the short axis (the arms of the cross) is the transept; the square defined by their overlap is the crossing. Atop the roof of Notre Dame, just dead center above the crossing, stood the central spire, all 200 feet of it pointing straight to heaven and itself assembled of oak and lead weighing in at 250 tons. As night descended over Paris, and as the fire burned away the oak beams supporting that spire, it collapsed with a roar and dove into the crossing below like a vertical blazing freight train. Oh no! Notre Dame is Kaput. Gone. Dead.

But, no.

OK, yes, it was a world class mess with melted lead and water from the pompiers’ hoses and charred timbers and smoke damaged artwork tumbled into a smoldering heap. But .  .  .  The exterior walls stood! The magnificent stained glass windows stood! Teams of volunteers had hauled out and preserved much of the artwork before the spire crashed through. Maybe the old gal could salvage herself. Days later French President Emmanuel Macron stopped by and made a pledge to the world: in five years the summer Olympics will come to Paris. We will repair, restore, and reopen this beloved cathedral by then.

They did it. First class all the way.

If you happened by Notre Dame in the years and decades before the fire, of course the architecture and the glass and the scope of the history impressed you. But, you know, in truth, the place was a tad grimy. A tad dim. It seemed no one had laddered up to the Rose window with a squeeze bottle of Windex for a while. Nor lathered the walls with a fresh coat of whitewash. And so, as long as the construction crews labored there building a new spire and rebuilding the Gothic arches shattered by the old spire, they decided to give the treasured old gal a good spiff. When you walk into Notre Dame today, you might float a few millimeters off the deck. Radiance. Glory. Brilliance. Well done, France.

Before you conclude your visit to Notre Dame, check out some of the carvings that the ancients chiseled over the front doors. One is of Saint Denis, sent out by the pope in the middle of the third century to convert the French. The Roman governor disliked his missionary success, so had him beheaded. Whereupon, according to legend, Denis picked up his head and carried it several miles while preaching a sermon on repentance, before finally keeling over dead. Here he is, flanked by aghast angels, marching on to glory.

A rendering of the last judgment perches nearby. Jesus on his throne presides over the separation of the saved from the damned, as determined by the scales suspending from an angel’s hand. If the scale tilts left, off you go to paradise while gazing up at the salvific face of Christ. If the scale tilts right, bad news for you, pal, as Demons tie you together with your fellow miscreants and drag you off to hell. Now observe the little imp kneeling between the angel and the devil and tipping the scale towards damnation with his stick. Little hellion.

Finally, before you check out of this blog, here is a sweet little anomaly for you. Just there at the very corner of the crossing, just meters away from the great collapse, which came right down through that blue disc in the ceiling, stands a statue of Mother Mary with baby Jesus in arms. Stood there then. Stands there now. Unscathed.