It took little more than an hour. In that amount of time, the spire had fallen, most of the roof had given way, and that was that. Notre Dame — the literal and figurative heart of Paris, the point from which all distances in the city are measured and the seemingly eternal backdrop to life in the French capital — was essentially no more.

Granted, the facade was preserved, and the bell towers remain intact. But this is without question a story of loss on an otherwise perfect spring day.

To have lived in Paris in recent years is to be well acquainted with loss and even unspeakable tragedy. The killing of 12 people in the attack at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo after a morning meeting in January 2015. The bombings and shootings that claimed 130 lives at the national stadium, the Bataclan concert hall and on random cafe terraces near the Canal Saint-Martin. The killings of two elderly Jewish women — one hurled from her apartment window. The omnipresence of armed guards at any site where crowds may gather.

But through all of these nightmares, there has been one constant, collective refrain. This was the comforting reality — or at least the comforting belief — that somehow, through it all, Paris was indestructible. The idea that Paris will always be Paris felt truer nowhere else than in front of Notre Dame.

In his remarks to a grieving nation close to midnight, President Emmanuel Macron called the cathedral a metaphor for France. “Notre Dame is our history, our literature, our imagination,” he said. “The place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicentre of our lives.”

The quiet broke every so often — gasps when the spire finally tipped over and fell, the whistles of police officers pushing back the crowds. People did move away, but everyone walked backward, so as not to miss a single moment of a spectacle that was both spellbinding and terrifying.

Many were in silent tears; many others embraced strangers. But in general, thousands gathered because they realized they could do nothing else but catch a final glimpse of the place they had known and loved, a place that Macron immediately promised to rebuild but that can never quite be the same again. The fate of certain stained-glass windows — kaleidoscopes in the sunlight — remains unknown.