Almost as soon as he took office, Urbain began to change the way the bells were rung, drawing on his experience at Lourdes. “There was no plan, the bell ringing was always the same,” he said.
The bells were mainly used to sound with simple strokes the thrice-daily Angelus and the Masses on Sunday. But Urbain realized that he could program the four north tower bells to ring bars of well-known music, including the Bach chorale Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland, or at Easter time the hymn Regina Coeli Laetare. The bass bell posed more of a challenge. It was rarely rung except for solemn feasts like Easter or to mark the death of a pope or archbishop of Paris. But Urbain devised programs combining the bass bell and the four lesser bells.
Urbain acknowledges that his changes have caused problems. “The more you use them, the more the bells wear down,” he said. To reduce wear the clapper in the bass bell, which weighs more than 450kg, is now made of soft steel. The additional use also strains the electric motors that pull chains to set the bells ringing.
Nicolas Gueury could not agree more. Gueury is deputy director of Mamias, part of the Biard-Roy group that specializes in the care of bells, including these. During a recent inspection, he pointed to worn spots on the rim of the bass bell, where the clapper hits, and said that if the wear continued it could cause the bell to split, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. “A bell is a note, like the string of a piano,” he said. The bass bell, in his view, is “the most beautiful of the bells.”
“By its weight, by its antiquity, and by its musical quality, it is the most pure,” he said.
The caretakers occasionally turn the bells so that the clapper hits a different area of the rim, reducing wear. His two experts clambered over the bells. Roger Lucot, 48, climbed on the clapper of one bell and rode it, Tarzan-like, until it struck the far rim. They greased the moving parts and tested the electric motors and the drive chains. One chain needed replacing.
“Here in Notre Dame we have a precautionary system,” Gueury said. “Before it breaks, we hope to catch it.” Urbain agrees the goal must be not only to use, but also to preserve the bells. “I have more ideas,” he said. “We will have fewer bells in Lent ... but we will have a full program, particularly at Easter time.”
Urbain loves the bells, he said, but as part of the whole cathedral. “And she is a very jealous and possessive woman,” he said.
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