There's a scene in Richard Linklater's 2004 film, Before Sunset, where protagonists Jesse and Céline drift past Notre Dame on a Paris riverboat. Taken by the cathedral's beauty, Jesse tells a story of its near-destruction. Occupying Nazis filled Notre Dame with explosives and intended to blow it up during World War II, he says, but the German soldier tasked with detonating the cathedral couldn't bring himself to do it.
"That's a great story. But you have to think that Notre Dame will be gone one day," Céline replies. "There used to be another church, a cathedral, at the same [spot]. Right there."
