I've never been to Paris, but I've been to Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster and St. Paul's, and to the great churches of Rome. Walking into these ancient vaulted places, I always, immediately, felt the enormous emotional pressure they exert . . . an active, startling, wrenching olio of history, faith, awe, and private tale. Pregnant with my first child, I sat in Canterbury Cathedral with my mother, and we wept as an orchestra and chorus went through a dress rehearsal of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. To be inside such greatness--place synthesized with music . . . to have this small unknown child with us: the tears poured down our faces.

All this is to say, O Notre Dame.