Opinion | Standing Vigil for Notre-Dame

PARIS — For the past 13 years, I have had the privilege of waking up and falling asleep in the shadow of Notre-Dame Cathedral. I live midway on an invisible line linking Simone de Beauvoir’s attic room on 11 rue de la Bûcherie, where she lived after World War II, and the south flank of Notre-Dame. The cathedral’s best profile, the one she gives to Left Bank visitors, is the décor of my life.

Believe it or not, one never gets used to such beauty. It quietly stuns you each time your eyes lift to meet her medieval gaze. Every morning that I am home in Paris, I silently salute her as I leave the house or cross the River Seine at Pont de l’Archevêché, where newlyweds come from all over the world to be photographed in their dresses and suits, often oblivious to the scorching heat, famous Paris “grisaille” or subzero temperatures.

My collection of pictures of Notre-Dame in all seasons and lights compares only with that of my most beloved friends and family: Notre-Dame at dusk, Notre-Dame disappearing into thick fog, Notre-Dame at sunset, Notre-Dame looking moody or fierce. I have them all.

Yesterday afternoon, when I saw clouds of smoke through my kitchen window coming from the direction of the Seine, I gasped and rushed to open the windows. I could see flames from one of the small rose windows and part of the roof nearby, but the blossoming trees partially blocked my view. I ran outside.

Parisians and tourists, already gathering on the sidewalk, spilled into the street, up to the “bouquinistes,” the famous riverbank booksellers. I watched for a few minutes as vivid yellow smoke poured forth from Notre-Dame and blood-orange flames licked the sky. It was terribly and strangely beautiful. Firefighters and policemen started moving in from all sides and I ran home to cry.

How to look away? I stood at my kitchen window and watched the 315-foot-tall spire engulfed in flames. The roof, dating to the 13th century and made of more than a thousand oak trees, was being eaten alive. The firefighters with their cranes came and went. I watched a stained-glass window melt. Then the spire collapsed.

The police had to contain the crowds in the streets leading to the riverbanks. People were packed together. I could see their faces — some were silently praying, others quietly singing Ave Marias, most looking simply solemn, often with tears pearling down their cheeks. Many stayed throughout the night, as if at the bedside of a seriously injured beloved parent.

Just before midnight we learned that the structure and the towers had been saved by the firefighters and that the timber roof, known as “the forest,” had been destroyed. The fate of the 13th-century stained glass was uncertain. Utter despair gradually left space for some timid hope. Unable to sleep, I went by her side, on the riverbank, to wait for the first light of day. Firefighters were still pouring water, when dawn suddenly broke in pink and purple hues. Notre-Dame was there, still standing, and still mesmerizingly beautiful. I had taken binoculars with me to look at the stained-glass windows. I could make out colors and animal figures. Was this what they call a miracle?

Notre-Dame has always been much more than a cathedral or a historical building. She is a living being, an imposing yet benevolent presence in the life of anyone who approaches her. For hundreds of years, she was the tallest building men and women could see from dozens of miles away.

“We will rebuild it,” President Emmanuel Macron said. That is what the forests near Fontainebleau and Versailles are for. Civilization is made of this, some very old and some younger strong wood, and medieval stones. I will now live in front of a wounded Notre-Dame, an even more humbling sight. Every day, I will salute her beauty and her resilience.

Agnès C. Poirier (@agnescpoirier) is a journalist and the author, most recently, of “Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris 1940-1950.”