And yet. . .

 I ran an old editorial cartoon a couple of days ago from an August 23, 1920 newspaper.

August 23, 1920. Portents

From the Sandusky Ohio Star Journal, August 23, 1920.  "The Sky Is Now Her Limit".

I also cross posted that on Reddit's 100 Years Ago subm where somebody made this observation:

Pretty much everything has been ticked off except presidency and it’s looking like that will likely change soon as well!

I hadn't thought of that, but that's correct.

Which makes me wonder why item number one on the rungs is still around.  The slavery one, that is.

Now, this isn't going to be a feminist manifesto proclaiming that something like marriage is slavery, or some other such nonsense.  No, rather, by slavery, we're referring to concubinage.

That may sound odd, and even impossible in the modern context, but it isn't in this one.  

A concubine, as well all know, is a species of prostitute, the prime thing being different from conventional prostitutes is that their services were bound to a single master rather than simply sold to everyone and, therefore, I am perhaps being polite here.  By way of movies, television, magazines and, most importantly now, the internet, thousands upon thousands of women prostitute their images to those unknown and by extension putting their entire gender into a type of ongoing concubinage.

We've dealt with this before.  Starting in 1953, when Playboy magazine brought photographic prostitution into the mainstream, starting first with Marilyn Monroe.  Monroe managed to overcome the scandal, through the intervention of Life magazine which published her naked photographs first, but she was never really able to overcome the image.  She'd always be, in the eyes of thousands of men, about to take off her clothes, no matter how clothes she might really be.

The way we'd probably like to remember Marilyn Monroe, if we could. We really can't, however, as she built her career on her figure in a more revealing way than still rather obvious here (with a nice Yaschaflex camera by the way).  From this earlier thread here.  Playboy's co-opting of her body, sold several years earlier to a calendar photographer when she was unknown and desperate, nearly ruined her career, which was saved only by Life magazine determining to beat Playboy to the punch and publishing it first.  Life's parry saved her from an immediate ruined career, but the overall publicity launched Playboy.  In the end, of course, she'd be only one of the lives effectively ruined by Playboy, although her own selling of her image in less graphic form, combined with an early tragic history, played a larger measure in that.

Anyhow, since that fateful 1953 publication date, the prostitution of the female form has expanded enormously.  And hence the slavery.

Every Kate Upton who appears for the viewing pleasure of thousands of unknown men strikes a blow at women of achievement.  There's no two ways about it.  So that first rung remains one to be overcome.

And, of course, in some direct ways, the portrayal of young women in anonymous pornography is actual slavery, aided along by drugs, desperation, and social decay.

Novella d'Andrea, a professor in law at the University of Bologna and daughter of canon law professor Giovanni d'Andrea, who gave her lectures from behind a screen lest her beauty distract her students.  Both of Giovanni's daughters were professors of law.  What?  You didn't think that possible in the 1330s and 1340s. . . well it was.

No matter how far women come, until their routine selling of their images ceases, and until women themselves stop participating it when they voluntarily do, and until its no longer tolerated by men and women, true equality will never really be achieved.

Pandemic

A plague doctor wearing the special costume of such doctors at the time. The costume was thought to protect the wearer against the plague.  If it seems weirdly creepy, it's probably just about as effective as wearing a surgical mask in a public place.

Pandemic:

A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease.

World Health Organization.

An epidemic of disease, or other health condition, that occurs over a widespread area (multiple countries or continents) and usually affects a sizeable part of the population.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Pandemic refers to an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting a large number of people.

U.S. Center for Disease Control.

Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world due to a susceptible population. By definition, a true pandemic causes a high degree of mortality (death) 

By contrast:  

• An epidemic affects more than the expected number of cases of disease occurring in a community or region during a given period of time. A sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group as, for example, AIDS in Africa or AIDS in intravenous drug users. 
• An endemic is present in a community at all times but in low frequency. An endemic is continuous as in the case of malaria in some areas of the world or as with illicit drugs in some neighborhoods. 

The word "pandemic" comes from the Greek "pan-", "all" + "demos," "people or population" = "pandemos" = "all the people." A pandemic affects all (nearly all) of the people. By contrast, "epi-" means "upon." An epidemic is visited upon the people. And "en-" means "in." An endemic is in the people.

Web MD*

Is there a Coronavirus epidemic and if there is, will it become a pandemic?

It's certainly creating havoc on the world economic scale, but a lot of that is due to human reaction rather than the disease itself.  Faced with a new disease that seemed to have a high incidence of fatality, the People's Republic of China struggled to get ahead of the disease and for a time, frankly, did badly, resorting to shutting information up, the usual reaction of a Communist state to any bad news of any kind whatsoever.  After that, exhibiting massive control of the population, it managed to shut things down.

That had an impact on the world's economy as it was.  China has become the manufacturing hub, unfortunately, for the globe, relying on cheap labor and a well educated population as it does.  So the virtual closing of a region of the giant country had an immediate ripple effect on the economy of the planet.  But only a ripple.

Which is temporarily beside the point in this post.

Humans retain an interesting memory, sort of, of historic pandemics.  In our collective memories, they occur, but our memory of them is quite flawed. Almost by definition we imagine all pandemics to be real killers, and we have been worrying that Coronavirus will break out as a killer pandemic.

Here on this site we're somewhat uniquely situated as we deal with, the past two years, the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic, which was a real killer that swept the globe to massive effect.  Millions died in that event, which had a 2.5% mortality rate.

Yes, 2.5%.

That doesn't sound that high, but a normal variant of the flu has a less than .1% mortality rate. The flu still kills thousands in the U.S. every year, but it didn't have the impact that the 1918-19 flu did.

The pandemic, however, that really remains vaguely in our memory was the Great Plague, which killed 30% to 60% of the European population and which is estimated to have reduced the human population by about 500,000,000 people globally.  Raging from 1347 to 1351, the pandemic actually trailed all the way into the 20th Century, contrary to popular understanding of it, and is actually within the vague life experience of quite a few living people.  Regions of the globe in some instances didn't recover until the 19th Century. 

Of course, we need to keep in mind a couple of things about both of these. First of all, living conditions contributed a lot to the Great Plague. It's flea borne disease, after all.  Today, the plague, which is still around, isn't nearly as deadly as we don't live in a sea of fleas.

In the 1340s, we did.

When you hear of somebody getting the plague and dying of it today, and you do if you pay careful attention, it's because they did something that put them in contact with fleas.  Hunters will occasionally get them from game, and I recall reading in a National Geographic about a rural hiker getting it just because of where he walked his dog.

In contrast, the most recent disease to clearly achieve the widespread dread level, AIDS, may or may not have ever been a pandemic, but because of its mode of transmission was actually fairly difficult to get.  The plague put the entire 14th Century human population at risk because of the way they lived and had to live.  AIDS actually only put a narrow demographic at risks due to a variety of things, all of which except for blood borne transfusions, had an element of human conduct involved to them.  I'm not cast aspersions of any kind here, but only noting the science of it.

The 1918 Flu, however, was an airborne disease that people simply couldn't avoid.  The conditions of World War One, including crowded troop conditions, massively contributed to its spread, as did the transportation of troops around the globe. But the disease itself was airborne.

So is the Coronavirus, and like the 1918 flu, it got started in crowed conditions (and in Asian conditions, like most flus do) and its being transported around the globe due to travel, the difference being that its getting around a lot quicker than the 1918 flu did.

The mortality rate of the Coronavirus isn't known yet.  Early reports in China placed it at 17%, which is massive.  If that was the rate, the globe would really be in for it as this would truthfully be an airborne disease the likes of which we haven't seen for a very long time.  More recent data, however, roughly came in at about 3%, and then 2%.  In comparison the the death rates for SARS is 9.6%, MERS 34% and the Swine Flu, which was a bad one, .02%

The disease is distinctly different than the flu in a lot of ways, which is important to note.  The flu takes a trip through ducks and pigs on its way to humans, for one thing, while the Coronavirus takes a trip through bats.  That's bad as bats have a titanic immune system and that means that the virus doesn't terminate there for that reason.

Additionally, the flu is a family of nasty diseases where as this Coronavirus is just one, COVID-19. 

Like the flu, however, people's reactions vary and apparently 81% of those who get Coronavirus get a mild form of it.  Some show hardly any reaction to it at all. That's good as chances are if you get it, it'll be mild.  It's hardest on the elderly, which is the case for the normal flu (but which was not the case for the 1918-19 flu which hit the young hardest).  And it may turn out to be that it's less deadly than it currently appears to be.  Frankly the fact that it was an unknown disease when it hit and that only the severely ill were reporting to hospitals made it initially appear worse than it was.

Having said that, even if its half as deadly as it currently appears, it'll still kill a lot of people who get infected.

And frankly, from a scientific prospective, my guess is you are going to get it. 

A recent Harvard report put the floor of the infection at 40% of the human population, and the ceiling at 60%, which is less than the 1918 flu ultimately infected.  I'd guess that to be right, no matter what.

And that does mean that this is going to impact the economy.  It'll do it only temporarily.  Taking the 1918-1919 flu as the most analogous example is difficult, however, as World War War was raging during its worst months, which made its economic impact muted; people kept fighting and kept making munitions, etc., as they had to.  Having said that, the flu did basically take the Australian Army in Europe out of the war in the fall of 1918, which was towards the war's end, and it may have had an impact on the German 1918 spring offensive.  Had the war not been raging, the economic impact would have been notable, but then if the war hadn't been raging, the flu likely wouldn't have turned into a pandemic. So it turns out that it's not a very good analogy.  Indeed, one Federal researcher who studied it concluded:**

The influenza of 1918 was short-lived and “had a permanent influence not on the collectivities but on the atoms of human society – individuals.”31 Society as a whole recovered from the 1918 influenza quickly, but individuals who were affected by the influenza had their lives changed forever. Given our highly mobile and connected society, any future influenza pandemic is likely to be more severe in its reach, and perhaps in its virulence, than the 1918 influenza despite improvements in health care over the past 90 years. Perhaps lessons learned from the past can help mitigate the severity of any future pandemic

And so, this isn't a cheery post.  My guess is that this disease,  now that the evidence is in, will get around, and it will kill quite a few.  It won't be like the Great Plague, thank goodness, but it'll be a disaster for some, and it will be a damper on the global economy until the spring.

*FWIW, the best of these definitions is the Web MD one.
**Economic Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Implications for a Modern-day Pandemic Thomas A. Garrett Assistant Vice President and Economist Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the East: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Churches of the East: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the East: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Churches of the East: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

 

How deserted she sits, the city once thronged with people! Once the greatest of nations, she is now like a widow. Once the princess of states, she is now put to forced labour.

All night long she is weeping, tears running down her cheeks. Not one of all her lovers remains to comfort her. Her friends have all betrayed her and become her enemies.

Judah has gone into exile after much pain and toil. Living among the nations she finds no respite; her persecutors all overtake her where there is no way out.

The roads to Zion are in mourning; no one comes to her festivals now. Her gateways are all deserted; her priests groan; her young girls are grief-stricken; she suffers bitterly.

Her foes now have the upper hand, her enemies prosper, for Yahweh has made her suffer for her many, many crimes; her children have gone away into captivity driven in front of the oppressor.

And from the daughter of Zion all her splendour has departed. Her princes were like stags which could find no pasture, exhausted, as they flee before the hunter.

Jerusalem remembers her days of misery and distress; when her people fell into the enemy's clutches there was no one to help her. Her enemies looked on and laughed at her downfall.

Jerusalem has sinned so gravely that she has become a thing unclean. All who used to honour her despise her, having seen her nakedness; she herself groans aloud and turns her face away.

Her filth befouls her skirts -- she never thought to end like this, and hence her astonishing fall with no one to comfort her. Yahweh, look at my misery, for the enemy is triumphant!

The enemy stretched out his hand for everything she treasured; she saw the heathen enter her sanctuary, whom you had forbidden to enter your Assembly.

All her people are groaning, looking for something to eat; they have bartered their treasures for food, to keep themselves alive. Look, Yahweh, and consider how despised I am!

All you who pass this way, look and see: is any sorrow like the sorrow inflicted on me, with which Yahweh struck me on the day of his burning anger?

He sent fire from on high deep into my bones; he stretched a net for my feet, he pulled me back; he left me shattered, sick all day long.

He has watched out for my offences, with his hand he enmeshes me, his yoke is on my neck, he has deprived me of strength. The Lord has put me into clutches which I am helpless to resist.

The Lord has rejected all my warriors within my walls, he has summoned a host against me to crush my young men; in the winepress the Lord trampled the young daughter of Judah.

And that is why I weep; my eyes stream with water, since a comforter who could revive me is far away. My children are shattered, for the enemy has proved too strong.

Zion stretches out her hands, with no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded Jacob's enemies to surround him; they treat Jerusalem as though she were unclean.

Yahweh is in the right, for I rebelled against his command. Listen, all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My young girls and my young men have gone into captivity.

I called to my lovers; they failed me. My priests and my elders expired in the city, as they searched for food to keep themselves alive.

Look, Yahweh. I am in distress! My inmost being is in ferment; my heart turns over inside me -- how rebellious I have been! Outside, the sword bereaves; inside it is like death.

Listen, for I am groaning, with no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my disaster, they are glad about what you have done. Bring the Day you once foretold, so that they may be like me!

Let all their wickedness come before you, and treat them as you have treated me for all my crimes; numberless are my groans, and I am sick at heart.

In his anger, with what darkness has the Lord enveloped the daughter of Zion! He has flung the beauty of Israel from heaven to the ground, without regard for his footstool on the day of his anger.

The Lord pitilessly engulfed all the homes of Jacob; in his fury he tore down the fortresses of the daughter of Judah; he threw to the ground, he desecrated the kingdom and its princes.

In his burning anger he broke all the might of Israel, withdrew his protecting right hand at the coming of the enemy, and blazed against Jacob like a fire that burns up everything near it.

Like an enemy he bent his bow, and his right hand held firm; like a foe he slaughtered all those who were a delight to see; on the tent of the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord behaved like an enemy; he engulfed Israel, he engulfed all its citadels, he destroyed its fortresses and for the daughter of Judah multiplied weeping on wailing.

He wrecked his domain like a garden, destroyed his assembly-points, Yahweh erased the memory of festivals and Sabbaths in Zion; in the heat of his anger he treated king and priest with contempt.

The Lord has rejected his altar, he has come to loathe his sanctuary and has given her palace walls into the clutches of the enemy; from the uproar they made in Yahweh's temple it might have been a festival day!

Yahweh has resolved to destroy the walls of the daughter of Zion, stretching out the line, not staying his hand until he has engulfed everything, thus bringing mourning on wall and rampart; alike they crumbled.

Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has broken and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are among the gentiles, there is no instruction, furthermore her prophets cannot find any vision from Yahweh.

Mute, they sit on the ground, the elders of the daughter of Zion; they have put dust on their heads and wrapped themselves in sackcloth. The young girls of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.

My eyes are worn out with weeping, my inmost being is in ferment, my heart plummets at the destruction of my young people, as the children and babies grow faint in the streets of the city.

They keep saying to their mothers, 'Where is some food?' as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as they breathe their last on their mothers' breasts.

To what can I compare or liken you, daughter of Jerusalem? Who can rescue and comfort you, young daughter of Zion? For huge as the sea is your ruin: who can heal you?

The visions your prophets had for you were deceptive whitewash; they did not lay bare your guilt so as to change your fortunes: the visions they told you were deceptive.

All who pass your way clap their hands at the sight; they whistle and shake their heads over the daughter of Jerusalem, 'Is this the city they call Perfection of Beauty, the joy of the whole world?'

Your enemies open their mouths in chorus against you; they whistle and grind their teeth; they say, 'We have swallowed her up. This is the day we were waiting for; at last we have seen it!'

Yahweh has done what he planned, has carried out his threat, as he ordained long ago: he has destroyed without pity, increasing the might of your foes -- and letting your foes get the credit.

Cry then to the Lord, rampart of the daughter of Zion; let your tears flow like a torrent, day and night; allow yourself no respite, give your eyes no rest!

Up, cry out in the night-time as each watch begins! Pour your heart out like water in Yahweh's presence! Raise your hands to him for the lives of your children (who faint with hunger at the end of every street)!

Look, Yahweh, and consider: whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their little ones, the children they have nursed? Should priest and prophet be slaughtered in the Lord's sanctuary?

Children and old people are lying on the ground in the streets; my young men and young girls have fallen by the sword; you have killed them, on the day of your anger, you have slaughtered them pitilessly.

As though to a festival you called together terrors from all sides, so that, on the day of Yahweh's anger, none escaped and none survived. Those whom I had nursed and reared, my enemy has annihilated them all.

I am the man familiar with misery under the rod of his fury.

He has led and guided me into darkness, not light.

Against none but me does he turn his hand, again and again, all day.

He has wasted my flesh and skin away, has broken my bones.

He has besieged me and made hardship a circlet round my head.

He has forced me to dwell where all is dark, like those long-dead in their everlasting home.

He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains;

even when I shout for help, he shuts out my prayer.

He has closed my way with blocks of stone, he has obstructed my paths.

For me he is a lurking bear, a lion in hiding.

Heading me off, he has torn me apart, leaving me shattered.

He has bent his bow and used me as a target for his arrows.

He has shot deep into me with shafts from his quiver.

I have become a joke to all my own people, their refrain all day long.

He has given me my fill of bitterness, he has made me drunk with wormwood.

He has broken my teeth with gravel, he has fed me on ashes.

I have been deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is

and thought, 'My lasting hope in Yahweh is lost.'

Bring to mind my misery and anguish; it is wormwood and gall!

My heart dwells on this continually and sinks within me.

This is what I shall keep in mind and so regain some hope:

Surely Yahweh's mercies are not over, his deeds of faithful love not exhausted;

every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness!

'Yahweh is all I have,' I say to myself, 'and so I shall put my hope in him.'

Yahweh is good to those who trust him, to all who search for him.

It is good to wait in silence for Yahweh to save.

It is good for someone to bear the yoke from a young age,

to sit in solitude and silence when it weighs heavy,

to lay one's head in the dust -- maybe there is hope-

to offer one's cheek to the striker, to have one's fill of disgrace!

For the Lord will not reject anyone for ever.

If he brings grief, he will have pity out of the fullness of his faithful love,

for it is not for his own pleasure that he torments and grieves the human race.

When all the prisoners in a country are crushed underfoot,

when human rights are overridden in defiance of the Most High,

when someone is cheated of justice, does not the Lord see it?

Who has only to speak and it is so done? Who commands, if not the Lord?

From where, if not from the mouth of the Most High, do evil and good come?

Why then should anyone complain? Better to be bold against one's sins.

Let us examine our path, let us ponder it and return to Yahweh.

Let us raise our hearts and hands to God in heaven.

We are the ones who have sinned, who have rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

You have enveloped us in anger, pursuing us, slaughtering without pity.

You have wrapped yourself in a cloud too thick for prayer to pierce.

You have reduced us to rubbish and refuse among the nations.

Our enemies open their mouths in chorus against us.

Terror and pitfall have been our lot, ravage and ruin.

My eyes dissolve in torrents of tears at the ruin of my beloved people.

My eyes will weep ceaselessly, without relief,

until Yahweh looks down and sees from heaven.

My eyes have grown sore over all the daughters of my city.

Unprovoked, my enemies hunted me down like a bird.

They shut me finally in a pit, they closed me in with a stone.

The waters rose over my head; I thought, 'I am lost!'

Yahweh, I called on your name from the deep pit.

You heard my voice, do not close your ear to my prayer, to my cry.

You are near when I call to you. You said, 'Do not be afraid!'

Lord, you defended my cause, you have redeemed my life.

Yahweh, you have seen the wrong done to me, grant me redress.

You have seen their vindictiveness, all their plots against me.

You have heard their insults, Yahweh, all their plots against me,

the whispering and murmuring of my enemies against me all day long.

Look, whether they sit or stand, I am their refrain.

Yahweh, repay them as their deeds deserve.

Lay hardness of heart as your curse on them.

Angrily pursue them, root them out from under your heavens!

How the gold has tarnished, how the fine gold has changed! The sacred stones lie scattered at the corner of every street.

The children of Zion, as precious as finest gold -- to think that they should now be reckoned like crockery made by a potter!

The very jackals give the breast, and suckle their young: but the daughter of my people is as cruel as the ostriches of the desert.

The tongue of the baby at the breast sticks to its palate for thirst; little children ask for bread, no one gives them any.

Those who used to eat only the best, now lie dying in the streets; those who were reared in the purple claw at the rubbish heaps,

for the wickedness of the daughter of my people exceeded the sins of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment without a hand being laid on it.

Once her young people were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; rosier than coral their bodies, their hue like sapphire.

Now their faces are blacker than soot, they are not recognised in the streets, the skin has shrunk over their bones, as dry as a stick.

Happier those killed by the sword than those killed by famine: they waste away, sunken for lack of the fruits of the earth.

With their own hands, kindly women cooked their children; this was their food when the daughter of my people was ruined.

Yahweh indulged his fury, he vented his fierce anger, he lit a fire in Zion which devoured her foundations.

The kings of the earth never believed, nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy would ever penetrate the gates of Jerusalem.

Owing to the sins of her prophets and the crimes of her priests, who had shed the blood of the upright, in the heart of the city,

they wandered blindly through the streets, polluted with blood, so that no one dared to touch their clothes.

'Keep away! Unclean!' people shouted, 'Keep away! Keep away! Don't touch!' If they left and fled to the nations, they were not allowed to stay there either.

The face of Yahweh destroyed them, he will look on them no more. There was no respect for the priests, no deference for the elders.

Continually we were wearing out our eyes, watching for help -- in vain. From our towers we watched for a nation which could not save us anyway.

Men dogged our steps, to keep us out of our streets. Our end was near, our days were done, our end had come.

Our pursuers were swifter than eagles in the sky; they hounded our steps through the mountains, they lay in ambush for us in the wilds.

The breath of our nostrils, Yahweh's anointed, was caught in their traps, he of whom we said, 'In his shadow we shall live among the nations.'

Rejoice, exult, daughter of Edom, you who reside in Uz! To you in turn the cup will pass; you will get drunk and strip yourself naked!

Your wickedness is atoned for, daughter of Zion, he will never banish you again. But your wickedness, daughter of Edom, will he punish, your sins he will lay bare!

Yahweh, remember what has happened to us; consider, and see our degradation.

Our heritage has passed to strangers, our homes to foreigners.

We are orphans, we are fatherless; our mothers are like widows.

We have to buy our own water to drink, our own wood we can get only at a price.

The yoke is on our necks; we are persecuted; exhausted we are, allowed no rest.

We made a pact with Egypt, with Assyria, to have plenty of food.

Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear the weight of their guilt.

Slaves rule us; there is no one to rescue us from their clutches.

At peril of our lives we earn our bread, by risking the sword of the desert.

Our skin is as hot as an oven, from the scorch of famine.

The women in Zion have been raped, the young girls in the towns of Judah.

Princes have been hanged by their hands; the face of the old has won no respect.

Youths have been put to the mill, boys stagger under loads of wood.

The elders have deserted the gateway; the young have given up their music.

Joy has vanished from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.

The crown has fallen from our heads. Alas that ever we sinned!

This is why our hearts are sick; this is why our eyes are dim:

because Mount Zion is desolate; jackals roam to and fro on it.

Yet you, Yahweh, rule from eternity; your throne endures from age to age.

Why do you never remember us? Why do you abandon us so long?

Make us come back to you, Yahweh, and we will come back. Restore us as we were before!

Unless you have utterly rejected us, in an anger which knows no limit.

The Book of Lamentations.

It's not a "national landmark", it's a Cathedral

And hence its much more important.

I keep seeing references to Notre Dame de Paris as a "landmark" or a "national treasure", or all sorts of other similar terms.  All of which are in fact true.

And all of which miss the point.  Notre Dame de Paris is a Catholic Cathedral, and that's not only what it is, its why it is, and why its a national treasure and all of those other things.  It's status as a Catholic Cathedral defines everything about it.  Everything.

France is sometimes referred to as the "eldest daughter of the Church", referring to the very early conversion of the French people to Christianity.  The claim is associated with a claim that France was the first wholly Christian nation, but that claim is pretty debatable.  Actually, Armenia holds a better claim to that title.  But France became a Christian nation very early.

And by Christian nation, we mean a Catholic nation.  Irrespective of fanciful claims to the contrary that were fabricated during the Reformation, there's no doubt whatsoever that the early church was, "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church".  That's not a matter of religious faith, that's a matter of historic fact.  Christians of other denominations can't honestly deny that, and if they're honest with themselves, they have to explain it in some historically cogent fashion, excluding such clearly false claims such as a different nature of the early church or some secret great apostasy.  As the sage Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts".

France is also a country that saw radical early anti clericalism and extreme secularization, which is party of its problematic historical legacy.  That plays into the history of Notre Dame de Paris as well.  Four churches have stood on the spot where the damaged Cathedral now stands prior to the commencement of its construction.  In 1548 French Huguenots, a Protestant sect, destroyed some of its statutes, taking the extreme iconoclast position that pops up in Christianity, and indeed in other religions, from time to time.  It was heavily rebuilt over the years to reflect changes in architectural style.  An enormous statute of St. Christopher dating from 1413 was destroyed in 1786.  A spire that had been added on earlier was removed in the 18th Century, and then a new one reinstalled in the 19th.  During the French Revolution it was seized and defamed into a Cult of Reason, and the statutes of twenty eight Biblical kings beheaded on the mistaken ignorant belief that they represented French kings.

Indeed the unfortunate legacy of the unfortunate French Revolution, the model for modern revolutions in the fact that it it became wildly debased and turned into a massive, if still celebrated, failure, lingers on in that the Cathedral is property of the French state.  After the French Revolution, France has had an uneasy relationship with everything, including itself, and as part of that, with its Faith.  France became wildly anticlerical during the Revolution, but it remains Catholic still.

And it will continue to be.  Unlike Ireland or Quebec, which really don't exist without the Church, there is a France that can be discussed without discussing the Church, but like everything European, or at least worth celebrating in Europe, it's not only difficult to do, but largely discussing something that's much diminished without the Church.

There's no doubt that Europe has been struggling with itself since some date in the 20th Century, or perhaps some date in the 19th, and part of that has been an increase in worldliness and misdirection, and a perceived decrease in Faith.  That decrease, however, may in fact be a bit of an illusion, or misconstrued.  It's very clearly the case that the churches born of the Reformation, generally eager to accommodate themselves to social trends of all types, are suffering much.  Catholicism may seem to be, but it may be much less than imagined.  When real events occur, the basic Catholic nature of Catholic peoples (and the Orthodox nature of Orthodox people's for that matter, strongly reasserts itself.

Which may be why the fire at Notre Dame is oddly portentous. France is a bellwether of some sort, descending into the depths, and the reviving.  On the night the Cathedral was burning, people gathered to pray.

And that's quite telling.