Notre Dame rises from the ashes at last: world leaders join embattled Macron for grand reopening

Ceremony gives French president moment of glory in company of Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he delivers on promise to restore cathedral

It was like stepping back into a medieval age and reliving the breathtaking awe Notre Dame cathedral would have inspired in the 14th century when the light from the rose windows threw a kaleidoscope of colours on its pale creamy walls before hundreds of years of liturgical smoke and city pollution blackened them.

This is how the church would have appeared on completion in 1345, towering over Paris, then a city of 200,000 people, from the Ile de la Cite in the middle of the River Seine that bisects the French capital.