Paris hears brickbats in the belfry

Row as Notre Dame's sacristan rings the changes at cathedral

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 woollen 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 tons.

"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 misshapen 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, 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 with the caretakers of the bells. They visit them 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 archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger.

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, a shrine in the French Pyrenees, not far from where Urbain grew up.

Unable to find work in his field, he went 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 organisation 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-ton 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 Françoise; the smallest is Denise David.

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," he said. "The bell ringing was always the same."

The bells were used mainly to sound with simple strokes the thrice-daily Angelus and the Masses on Sunday. But Urbain realised he could program the four north tower bells to ring bars of well-known music and combine that with the bass bell, which was rarely rung except for solemn feasts such as Easter or to mark the death of a Pope or archbishop of Paris.

To reduce wear, the clapper in the bass bell, which weighs more than 1,000lb, is now made of soft steel.

Nicolas Gueury is deputy director of Mamias, a company specialising in the care of bells. During a recent inspection at Notre Dame, he pointed to worn spots on the rim of the bass bell, where the clapper hits, and said further wear could cause it to split, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.