Notre-Dame de Paris welcomes the return of the eight bells of its north belfry this Thursday, September 12. The cathedral is due to reopen on December 7.
From “Gabriel”, and its more than four tons, to the smaller “Jean-Marie”, named in homage to Cardinal Lustiger: Notre-Dame de Paris welcomes this Thursday, September 12, the return of the eight bells of its north belfry, less than three months before the reopening of the cathedral.
To allow the restoration of the north tower, damaged by the flames of the giant fire of April 15, 2019, these eight bells bearing the names of personalities who have marked the life of the diocese and the Church were removed in July 2023.
They have since been cleaned of lead dust, revised and restored at a Normandy foundry before returning to the Parisian cathedral on Thursday, where they are expected by truck around 10 a.m.
Bells weighing between 782 kg and 4,162 tonnes
They are to be blessed a little later in the morning by Mgr Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector-archpriest of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, present for their return, alongside Philippe Jost, president of the public institution Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris, project manager of the restoration project.
These bells 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 in the cathedral, including the two bourdons in the south tower.
The eight bells of the north belfry were restored by the Cornille Havard foundry in Manche. This company had made them in 2013.
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.
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