After a long cleaning and restoration work in the Manche department, the eight bells of the north belfry of Notre-Dame de Paris arrived in Paris on Thursday, September 12, less than three months before the cathedral reopens.
"These bells are the voice of the cathedral, the ones that ring every day ," rejoiced Philippe Jost, project manager of the restoration project , also president of the public institution Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris, upon their arrival by truck at 11 a.m. "This projects us towards the rebirth of Notre-Dame," he added, in the midst of a few dozen curious onlookers who came to take photos of the bells.
They will be reassembled in the belfry in the “next two or three weeks” and will be tested to be ready for reopening, according to Philippe Jost.
To allow the restoration of the north tower damaged by the flames of the giant fire of April 15, 2019, these bells, which bear the names of personalities who have marked the life of the diocese and the Church, were removed in July 2023. Since then, they have been cleaned of lead dust, revised and restored by the Normandy foundry Cornille Havard, in Manche. This company had made them in 2013.
The eight bells, which are to be blessed at midday by Bishop Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector-archpriest of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, weigh between 4.162 tonnes for "Gabriel", the heaviest, and 782 kg for the lightest, the one bearing the name of Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris from 1981 to 2005. Cast in 2013 to mark the cathedral's 850th anniversary, they are part of a set of twenty bells, including the two bourdons in the south tower.
After five years of a colossal project, which mobilized 250 companies and hundreds of craftsmen, the cathedral is due to reopen on December 7. Work is still underway to complete the restoration of the building and allow the public to return to Notre-Dame, where around ten million people flocked each year before the fire.
Sayart / Amia Nguyen, amyngwyen13@gmail.com
