Commentary: Notre Dame stands for a history that sets Paris apart
The words speckled my screen just before sunset: Incendie a Notre Dame, Christophe typed, fresh out of a daily contractor meeting for an office tower rising up on the south edge of Paris. Nothing had fallen yet. We both assumed it was a minor accident that the famous Pompiers de Paris would quickly quell. By the time my husband climbed up the metro stairs a half-hour later, flames had eaten the lead-sheathed wooden spire mounted atop the transept at the heart of
