We all thought we saw in the fall of the needle the last push

Today, three hundred and forty-eight years, six months and nineteen days ago, the inhabitants of Paris woke up to the sound of bells … "These are the first sentences of
Notre Dame of Paris, the novel of Victor Hugo. Yesterday, April 15, 2019, all the bells of the city rang again. This time, they touched the duel, the disaster, the end of a world; on Île de la Cité, where she watched history unfold for eight centuries, Notre Dame Cathedral burned. The elevation, the naves, the arches, the skeleton ridge arches, all in this magnificent basilica that revealed the evolution of the Gothic since its construction, seemed to be an easy prey for the flames. I think we all thought we saw the last push in the fall of the needle. A bump is formed in my throat. The shock was followed by a feeling of extreme fragility.

In a city like Paris, where the past is presented in a practical way in every street, every square and every historic site, Notre Dame has always had a separate space. It is surely for this reason that the images that came to us on television shook us in this way, provoking helplessness and sadness.

Without Notre Dame, Paris is not Paris. Without Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo would be less Victor Hugo. Notre Dame is the epicenter of French life. It's your culture. His history. Its kilometer 0. It took 180 years to build it and the fire devours it almost in 9 hours.

They promised to rebuild it. He will be reborn from his ashes.

Our Lady is Our Lady, but for the popular imagination it is also the Hunchback's Cathedral, that Hugo's Quasimodo who would be happy to come out of the flames as the taciturn man of the Borges circular ruins, without any scratches and willing to tell us story

Without Notre Dame, Paris would not be Paris.