Notre Dame moves to scrap out-of-tune bells
Baku, February 2 (AZERTAC). Paris cathedral's move to replace its old bells with new ones for its 850th anniversary fails to chime with heritage lobby
Their names sound pretty enough - Angélique-Françoise, Antoinette-Charlotte, Hyacinthe-Jeanne and Denise-David - but the noise they make together has been described as "discordant" and enough to drive Quasimodo deaf all over again.
Some have gone as far as to call them cheap, old and ugly.
Thus, there were expected to be few tears shed when the four bells, whose tolling has marked the march of time and a funereal adieu for the great and good at Notre Dame cathedral for 156 years, were taken from their belfry and consigned to the scrapheap.
Made and hung in 1856 to replace those torn from the cathedral during the French Revolution and melted down to make cannon - a fate that befell 80% of France's church bells at the time - they were, declared the French campanologist and music expert Hervé Gouriou, "one of the most dreadful sets of bells in France … damaged and badly tuned".
To mark the cathedral's 850th anniversary next year, a new set of eight bells, intended to recreate the sound of the 18th-century bells made famous by Victor Hugo's fictional Hunchback of Notre Dame, are being struck at a foundry in Normandy.
Now, however, dozens of cultural associations from France and abroad and at least one religious group have been going like the proverbial clappers to stop the bells being destroyed.
Father Alain Hocquemiller, the prior of a religious community in Normandy, went as far as to bring in the bailiffs to serve a legal notice to save them. He claims he was prompted to act after learning of plans to declassify the bells and melt them down for scrap.
Under a law dating back to 1905, Notre Dame belongs to the French government, which gives the Catholic Church the exclusive right to use it, so the bells, which weigh between 767kg and 1.91 tonnes each, belong to the state.
"I consulted a lawyer who told me it was the gratuitous destruction of France's religious heritage and that's not allowed by law," Hocquemiller told reporters.
The four grandes dames are currently at the French bell foundry Cornille-Havard, which is making the new bells using medieval methods, including pouring bronze into moulds made from clay, horse manure and horsehair. They will be named after eight important figures in French history, with the design reflecting their namesakes.
Notre Dame's great south tower bell, the 13-tonne Emmanuel installed in 1685 and widely considered the most remarkable in Europe - which rang for the coronation of kings and to mark the end of the two world wars - was cut down by revolutionaries, but escaped destruction and was rehung on the orders of the Emperor Napoleon in 1802.
Father Patrick Jacquin, rector and archpriest at Notre Dame, told Le Parisien newspaper: "Forty cultural organisations have requested the dilapidated bells, but they don't belong to the church. End of story.
"The bells are not for sale, not for destruction, not for melting down. On February 2013 we will unveil eight new bells that will be blessed. Everything we have done has been in the open, nothing is hidden."
He added: "This isn't the first time the cathedral is the theatre for stories and fantasies, but given the choice, I prefer those of Victor Hugo."
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