The spine-tingling, soul-lifting spire and roof of Notre Dame Cathedral were reduced to ash Monday, as a catastrophic fire spread through a building that has embodied the heart of Paris for more than 800 years.
In an address to the nation just before midnight, President Emmanuel Macron said the worst had been avoided, that the exterior structure had been preserved and that the cathedral would rise again.
"I tell you solemnly tonight: We will rebuild this cathedral," he vowed. "Notre Dame of Paris is our history," Macron continued, emphasizing the structure's unique place in the national imagination. "The epicenter of our lives. It's the many books, the paintings, those that belong to all French men and French women, even those who've never come."