On 15 April 2019 the world watched as Notre Dame de Paris burned. After the flèche collapsed and smoke appeared through the louvres of the west towers it seemed all but certain that one of the most iconic buildings of Christendom was doomed.
Finding myself far away and sitting with a friend at dinner as the catastrophe occurred, we broke the usual rule of no devices at the table to follow the conflagration in real time. I sent messages to several of my students, urging them to tune in to what surely would be an assassination-of-JFK moment de leurs jours. On the banks of the Seine people chanted Je vous salue Marie as a song of farewell.
