Others are named after famous people: a king (Louis-Philippe), an engineer (Christophe Marie), a president of France (Charles de Gaulle), and a president of Senegal (Léopold-Sédar-Senghor). Bir-Hakeim memorializes the Libyan oasis where Free French forces repulsed two German enemy divisions in 1942 Iéna and Austerlitz were sites of Napoléon’s triumphs and Alma, a Crimean War victory. Some bridges are named for French military victories. But the structure still shows its splendor at night, the flat, dark silhouette of its flying buttresses visible through the trees. During the great fire of April 15, 2019, the cathedral lost the spire that Viollet-le-Duc erected, and sections of the roof are hidden under protective scaffolding. The view from behind is different from what it was just a few months ago. It looks nothing like the grandiose main entrance, whose hundreds of Medieval stone carvings make it one of the most recognizable images of Paris around the world. The back side of Notre-Dame is the creation of Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, the young architect in charge of the cathedral’s restoration in the 19th century. The delicate architectural details of the cathedral gradually reveal themselves, until finally, the early morning sun bathes them in warm orange hues. I watch as the sky moves from blue-black to deep blue velvet to soft gray, then light blue.

Before me is the skeletal back of Notre-Dame, shrouded in darkness. I plant myself at its midpoint, face west and wait.

Sometimes, when sleep eludes me in the dark hour before dawn, I make my way to the Pont de la Tournelle, the 400-foot bridge that links the Île Saint-Louis to Paris’s Left Bank.

The seine elaine sciolino