St. Louis Cathedral, other church bells toll for virus victims, healthcare workers

By Peter Finney Jr.
 
(Click here for video of the Palm Sunday bell ringing.)

When Archbishop Gregory Aymond asked all Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of New Orleans to ring their bells daily at 6 p.m. – beginning on Palm Sunday – as a call to prayer for victims of the coronavirus pandemic and for the protection of health care workers, the ancient bells of St. Louis Cathedral tolled sharply from their dual perch of history and grandeur.

According to the 2009 history book, “Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France,” there are seven bells in the steeple – three clock bells and four church bells. 

The largest of the three clock bells – “Victoire” – and two smaller bells date to 1819, when architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe designed the new central tower of the cathedral. Those bells commemorate the 1815 American victory over the British troops in the Battle of New Orleans.

“Victoire” has been tolling the hours since 1819, and it is older than the current cathedral, which was almost completely rebuilt in 1851.

The St. Louis Cathedral website indicates that in 1819, a New Orleans clockmaker, Jean Delachaux, was authorized by the trustees to obtain a suitable clock to be placed in the cathedral’s façade.
Since this was a project of wide civic interest, “the City Council agreed to the expense of buying the clock and its bell and also to share in the cost of erecting a central tower to house them.”











Delachaux brought the clock and bell with him from Paris, and Latrobe records in his journal the pomp and circumstance regarding the bell’s installation:

“ When the new bell was ready to be put into the tower, I wrote (Pere Antoine) a letter in Latin to apprise him of the circumstance, in order that, if the rites of the Church required any notice of it, he might avail himself of the occasion and do what he thought necessary. He thanked me, and I had the bell brought within the Church. After High Mass, he arranged a procession to the bell and regularly baptized her by the name of Victoire, the name embossed upon her by the founder."

“Victoire” is inscribed in French: “Braves Louisianais, cette cloche dont le nom est Victoire a été fondue en mémoire de la glorieuse journée du 8 Janvier 1815” (Brave people of Louisiana, this clock, whose name is Victory, was cast in memory of the glorious 8th of January, 1815).

Surmounting both inscriptions are American eagles. At the bottom of the bell, an inscription reads: “Fondue a Paris pour M. Jn. Delachaux de Nouvelle Orleans” (Cast in Paris for Mr. John Delachaux of New Orleans).

The central tower, which added grace and dignity to the cathedral, was one of Latrobe's last projects, for he died in New Orleans of yellow fever on Sept. 3,1820, before it was completed.

In 1849, Irish builder John Patrick Kirwan was contracted to make badly needed restorations to the cathedral. The contract called for Kirwan to follow J.N.B. de Pouilly's original specifications, leaving intact only the lateral walls and the lower part of the front and the flanking hexagonal towers of the old church. 

But as construction proceeded, it became evident that the side walls, too, would have to be demolished. During construction, the central clock and bell tower collapsed, causing estimated damages as high as $20,000. 

In 1851, architect Stanislaus Fornier was given the job. Fornier not only repaired and improved Delachaux’s clock but also created a mechanism that ran the steeple clock, the interior clock over the organ, and another on the rear wall of the church. The refurbished clock strikes every quarter hour.

In addition to the three clock bells, there are four “church” bells. One bell, from the Meneely Foundry in Troy, New York, dates from 1853. “Philomena Virginia,” another bell, was blessed in 1891.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].