Contemporary · Europe · Disaster

2019

Notre-Dame burns

April 15, 2019

Flames erupted in the attic of Notre-Dame de Paris just after evening Mass, devouring the lead roof and toppling the nineteenth-century spire into the nave in a cascade of molten metal and burning timber. Parisians knelt on the bridges and sang hymns. The medieval stone bones survived. Emmanuel Macron promised reconstruction in five years and was, almost, right.