perhaps a silver lining, if it raises awareness of the perilous state of thousands of other less famous structures. Since 1905 they are owned by the French government, 86 cathedrals and thousands of churches, and they don't receive much allowance for upkeep and improvements -- $360 million annually for all to share, per the NYT, including the cathedrals.
Notre Dame gets a little more from the city, but none of them have decent fire security systems. At Notre Dame it required a security guard to climb a winding staircase to the attic twice to find the flames before he was allowed to call the fire department, on the theory that old oak burns slowly and there would be plenty of time to report a fire.
So to prevent such catastrophes in the future they're going to have to find new ways of raising money and get to work spending it. And that will mean thousands of new good jobs for decades!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/world/europe/notre-dame-fire-safety.html
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