France is a great nation and the French a glorious people. Notre Dame Cathedral speaks to that: Even while burning, it represents France’s majestic culture and history. It was mostly completed just two years after the Mongol annihilation of Baghdad and 545 years before Napoleon’s great victory of Austerlitz.

When rebuilt, Notre Dame will once again represent abundant French pride and resilience. America should play a part in that rebuilding. It will likely be expensive, perhaps reaching into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Still, France is our oldest ally. It is the ally that made George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams our nation’s fathers, rather than traitors who died on the gallows at the hands of British rulers.