Bells in eighteenth-century France
The Encyclopédie entry on bells describes them as metal percussive instruments, "the sound of which has become among men a public or private sign that calls them" (539). Bells best represent how sound organized time and space (Corbin 1998). They punctuated and marked the canonical hours, feast days, and life events. Bells warned people of danger when rung off schedule or called people to discuss community issues. Travelers on dark and dangerous roads could listen for bells to find the nearest town or note the time of day. In small towns, bells were the loudest sound most people ever experienced. Even in cities, they stood out above the din of labor, transportation, and communication. In Paris, they contributed to the cacophony of which many a traveler complained.
In his Making of Revolutionary Paris, David Garrioch explains that of all the bells in Paris "most resonant were the church bells: fifty-odd parish churches and over one hundred monasteries all had their bells, each peal with a distinctive timbre and pitch that the local people recognized. At St-André-des-Arts the four main bells sounded F, E, D, C. Those of the Carthusian monastery, on the southern fringe of the city, played liturgical tunes in the early morning hours...Familiar sounds marked the hours from the first angelus that roused the weary workers through to the compline bells of the convents and monasteries (18-19, 22).
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