One of the oldest bells in North America, made in 1732, will finally be protected. The Minister of Culture and Communications of Quebec, Mathieu Lacombe, issues a “notice of intent to classify”. Eventually, this bell, which has mysteriously disappeared from Montreal for several years, will therefore be protected and considered as an asset of collective value. Known as the Bell of the Visitation, it was first installed in an Aboriginal evangelistic mission, then in the steeple of the Church of the Visitation in Sault-au-Récollet in 1751. In Old French, the word “sault” is a synonym for fall. This bell has been mentioned several times in the pages of Le Devoir.
Long preserved in Montreal as a rare artifact of New France, the bell of Fort Lorette disappeared at the end of the 20th century.e century, in circumstances that are at the very least nebulous. These led to police action. The bell was eventually found in the vast collection of bells from a private collection in Rivière-du-Loup held by the company JM Bastille Acier.
With this gesture, the Minister “recognizes that this heritage asset constitutes a national treasure and he ensures that it is protected for the benefit of future generations”. This bell was made by the Le Moyne family, a dynasty of founders established in the port city of Brest, France. “Today it is an important material witness to the genesis of one of the oldest sectors on the island of Montreal. It is also very rare. Only a few bells from this period now exist in North America.
This Bas-Saint-Laurent company claimed, during the lifetime of one of its founders, to hold “the largest collection of bells in the world”. It was exhibited, among others, in a sort of open-air museum which is now closed. How had she ended up there?
Without knowing how or why, a commemorative plaque, produced by the government and first installed in Trois-Rivières in homage to the Republican Ludger Duvernay, is also in this private collection in Rivière-du-Loup, after have disappeared from public space.
For several years, architect Jocelyn Duff, member of the Ahuntsic-Cartierville Historical Society (SHAC), has been tracking the trajectory of these missing objects. The minister called him personally Thursday evening to warn him of his decision to finally ratify a classification of this rare heritage object. Mr. Duff had made a request to this effect to the government in February 2021, without being successful. Since then, the story has been relayed more than once by the media.
Mr. Duff hopes like others that the bell will finally be able to find its place of origin in Montreal. The Fédération histoire Québec is delighted with the outcome of this story that has been dragging on for years.
Unless otherwise stated and an admissible challenge to the Ministry of Culture and Communications, the bell of the church of La Visitation should at the very least be protected in good and due form at the end of a process of consultation and a study which could take at least another five months.