TO Saint-Chartres (Vienne), hamlet of 110 inhabitants without schools or shops, located 25 kilometers from Loudun and 30 from Parthenay – in short, absolute tranquility -, Yves Paul lives a “Sound hell”. His misfortune: having bought, in 1988, a secondary house partly adjoining the village church. The ringing of the bells exasperated him, to the point that he decided to summon the town, ” responsible ” increase in intensity and frequency of the chime. “A terrible noise” would harm the tranquility to which this retiree from national education aspires. If the hours are tinkled every day of the year, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., it is the three daily angelus who particularly scratch his auditory pavilions. Begun about fifteen years ago, the case has exhausted all its drunkenness with requests and orders, experts and conciliators. Without success.
“Be careful, I have nothing to do with the Maurice rooster”, the complainant specifies from the outset, referring to the case of this singing gallinaceous bird from the island of Oléron, a symbol of the tensions that may exist between neorurals and locals. Although he lives year-round near Niort, Yves Paul is nonetheless attached to Saint-Chartres, where his first wife was from. It was also in the village church, now cursed, that he married in 1972. At that time, his mother-in-law, secretary of the town hall, had the key to Sainte-Julitte-et- Saint-Cyr (XIIe century), and his wife’s aunt would manually ring the angelus, along with other clam frogs.
With little hands gradually disappearing, the celestial timbre was electrified in the early 1990s by the municipal authorities. A crack is then discovered on the dress of the bell which officiated. The mechanism will be installed on the big bell, much more vehement. A few years later, the municipality will benefit from a repair of the device to automate the striking of the hours, silent until then, in addition to the angelus. This is too much for the grumpy resident, forced to caulk his chimney to mitigate the spread of the barouf at home.
The case turns funny
Mr. Paul will alert his insurance, the regional health agency, the prefecture, a law firm. The case turns funny. Carried out by an expert, sound measurements will be disturbed by a neighbour’s chainsaw. Replaced by the town hall, abat-son – canopies of inclined blades which dress the gills of the steeples – will not stifle sound waves, as their name suggests, but… send them back to the ground. The deputy mayor, Jean-Jacques Houllier, a farmer by profession, may well delay the first ringing by one hour during the weekend, and reduce the duration of the “full flight” specific to the Angelus by ten seconds. (2 minutes in all), nothing will do: Mr. Paul has taken legal action to put an end to his ordeal. The Poitiers administrative court rejected his request on Thursday, September 30, considering that the ringing of bells was part of an old tradition. The unsuccessful resident decided to appeal.
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