The second time we visited Notre Dame, we climbed the towers on those steps worn into curves by centuries of pilgrims and tourists. From its parapet one could begin to imagine the Paris that had been when it was initially completed in 1260, a city low to the eye, the spires of other churches crowning the skyline, Montmartre to the north, a region of fields and vineyards, animals everywhere, wood smoke, the courtyard awash in pilgrims during the warm months.
Below, circling, I liked to run a montage of its construction through my mind — scaffolding everywhere, the place filled with artisans and masons and carpenters at their work, rough talk and laughter, the structure mounting through the decades, the Seine the steadying landmark — all of this under that luminous Parisian sky. Notre Dame was one of those places whose sense of permanence, like certain big trees and flocks of birds, you were happy to know would be here after you were gone.
You were never alone inside, but even in the swash of all the air currents carrying echoes of conversation and clatter of movement, you could stand under the central nave and look up and immediately understand the ancient power of unquestioned faith. Here had been the promise of the majesty of Heaven brought to earth. Notre Dame was one of those essential markers of civilized grandeur. Now it is gone. In all the dislocations we face, in the awful chattering and screeds of all the awful people who hold power, in the damages that accrue by the day, this blow carries weight. I am a jaded American, and I feel its loss. If I were a Parisian, my grief would be irreconcilable.
