A few majestic swans fly above Lake Annecy, with the peaks of the Bauges massif regional natural park in the background. Just a few kilometers from the French Alps, employees of the Paccard bell foundry, in the village of Sevrier (Haute-Savoie), have been busy since dawn. There, several workers set about, in a rhythm that they know by heart, pouring molten bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, which will then be used to fill the mold of future bells.
Flames escape from the oven in stifling heat. Everyone wears a cotton suit woven with aluminum to protect themselves in case of splashes. Perched several meters on a stepladder, David Ughetto, 50, carefully pours the molten metal at 1,200 degrees. This master foundryman who has thirty years of experience presides over all stages of manufacturing.
Two tattoos on his left arm represent a bell and the Rouen Cathedral, whose carillon he participated in the restoration of in 2014. “I have my job engraved in my skin”he jokes proudly, praising the “mysterious side of the metal that sparkles when poured”.
The hum of the machines never stops. Molten bronze is poured into bell molds of different sizes: like nesting dolls, they are lined up on huge steel shelves, where they wait several hours before being unmolded.
Decorations are then made using wax, representing celestial powers, saints or mountain landscapes. These bells can weigh up to several dozen tons – the World Peace Bell, the largest flight bell in the world, cast by the Paccard foundry for the Millennium Monument Company in Newport, Kentucky (United States), weighs this much. more than 33 tons (42 tons, including the yoke and the leaf).
A family (and royalist) saga
For seven generations, the Paccard family has been making the oldest bells in France, with unique know-how. The beginning of this family saga dates back to 1796. In the midst of the revolutionary period, while bells were requisitioned and remelted by the Republicans to make weapons, the Paccard family at the time, royalist and anti-revolutionary, saw in the bell factory a form resistance.
Nearly a century later, in 1891, the family distinguished itself with the manufacture of the largest bell in France, the Savoyarde, classified as a historic monument, which still sits in the middle of the Sacré-Cœur basilica in Paris. In bronze, it weighs more than 19 tons, 3 meters in diameter and 9 meters in circumference. At the time, it was the initiative of the Archbishop of Chambéry, Mgr Leuillieux [1823-1893]that it was cast, destined for the Parisian monument.
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