Stephane Urbain stood leaning against a heavy wood frame high in the north tower of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, wrapped in a navy blue woolen cape against the wind, as he waited for the bells to sound.
Then three of the four immense bells tolled, shaking the massive oak frame, which weighs more than 187 tonnes.
“C-sharp, D-sharp twice, F,” Urbain said, a broad smile lighting up his face, even in the darkness of the bell cage.
Urbain, a 40-year-old chemist by training, is the chief sacristan of the cathedral. As such, he is also the chief bell ringer. His role often brings mention of Quasimodo, Victor Hugo’s character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, who as the bell ringer was deafened by the volume.
Urbain rejects the comparison. “I am a little musical,” he said, with characteristic understatement, receiving a visitor amid the robes and golden liturgical vessels of the sacristy. His musicality has led to a minor revolution in the way that the bells have been rung since he became the chief sacristan three years ago.
This has put him in conflict at times with the caretakers of the bells. These specialists visit the towers six times a year to check the condition of the bronze, examine the electric motors with their intricate chains that now swing the bells and inspect the wooden frame from which they are suspended.
The caretakers want less music, to diminish wear on the centuries-old bells. Urbain wants more, to restore the art to what it must have been when the bells were young.
Victor Hugo and Walt Disney aside, ringing the bells may never have involved swinging from a rope. The bells — four smaller ones in the north tower of the cathedral and the bass bell, or bourdon, in the south — still display the remains of wooden platforms and metal bars that the bell ringers used to swing the huge bells by pumping with their feet. They were electrified in 1930, and are now controlled electronically by computer. Urbain is a master of software programming as well.
Still, there are occasional slip-ups. In 2004, during Holy Week, a mechanical failure silenced the bells for several days. “Cardinal Lustiger was furious,” said Urbain, referring to the late Jean-Marie Lustiger, who was then archbishop of Paris.
Urbain became keeper of the Notre Dame bells pretty much by accident. He was trained in chemistry but had a job when he was in school with the man who took care of the famed carillon at Lourdes, the shrine in the French Pyrenees, not far from where Urbain grew up. Unable to find work in his field, he came to Paris about 10 years ago and was able to use his experience to join the cathedral staff. In 2005, when the chief sacristan moved on to be chief guardian of the cathedral, Urbain succeeded him.
With a staff of four sacristans, he is responsible for the smooth organization of the liturgical services, from simple Masses by the cathedral clergy to elegant services involving the cardinal. But his real passion is the bells.
Notre Dame has 11 of them. The four in the north tower were cast in 1856 to replace older ones that were melted down during the French Revolution to make cannons and coins. The 14 tonne bass bell in the south tower was cast in 1680 and is supported by a vast wooden cage that dates to the Middle Ages. Six small bells were installed in the 19th century in and below the spire above the church’s transept. The bells, as sacred instruments, are all christened: the bass bell is Emmanuel; the largest of the smaller bells is Angelique Francoise; the smallest, Denise David.
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