Recognized as one of the best blacksmiths in America, Quebecois Mathieu Collette watches with pleasure the progress of the major construction site of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. He contributed closely to it. For several weeks, he worked in France to create certain tools necessary for this reconstruction.
“For us, blacksmiths, it’s already a bit of history! We watch the master carpenters work with our tools. Blacksmiths in France want to continue making these axes that they have recreated to market them and make them available. In the meantime, the Notre-Dame construction site is progressing. They are adjusting the pieces of the framework. » Torontonian Nicholas Patrick, who makes axes as a blacksmith in Sweden, is the only other Canadian, with Mathieu Collette, to have been involved in this work linked to the reconstruction of Notre-Dame.
Metal hair
Mathieu Collette is used to recreating all kinds of old tools from his forge located in Old Montreal. Before our eyes, while speaking, he makes a small ax head. “Metal is a bit like hair. There is a meaning, a fiber. You have to respect it to work well. »
Metal is a bit like hair. There is a meaning, a fiber. You have to respect it to work well.
Between 1163 and 1345, when Notre-Dame de Paris was a vast construction site, an army of blacksmiths supported the artisans on a day-to-day basis. “We had to provide them with good tools! We also had to make staples to hold stones and all sorts of things. There were blacksmiths everywhere on this site, with all that that entails,” explains the talkative Mathieu Collette.
“Blacksmiths consumed plenty of coal to fuel their fires. It was no small matter. Among the tools made, the ax was fundamental for squaring beams and preparing pieces of wood. The entire frame of Notre-Dame, made of oak wood, showed the traces left by these tools. How to reproduce them, with similar gestures and mannerisms? » Mathieu Collette and Torontonian Nicholas Patrick devoted themselves to the production of period tools for Notre-Dame de Paris. The pooling of different experiences allowed the cathedral to rise from the ground at lightning speed.
Blacksmiths consumed plenty of coal to fuel their fires. It was no small matter. Among the tools made, the ax was fundamental for squaring beams and preparing pieces of wood. The entire frame of Notre-Dame, made of oak wood, showed the traces left by these tools. How to reproduce them, with similar gestures and mannerisms?
From trading axes to doloires
“For the axes of Notre-Dame de Paris, we had to proceed by trial and error. We had an idea of what these tools looked like, but we cannot be sure whether they were exactly like the ones we had just recreated,” says Mathieu Collette, sweating in the suffocating heat of his room. forge. At the Forges de Montréal workshop, this master of fire and metal hammers before our eyes, for several hours, the incandescent metal of the ax head to which his hammer gives shape on the anvil. It is similar to those which served as currency of exchange with the Aboriginal people of the New World. “These axes came in barrels. They were then mounted on ash handles, made here. » In a corner of his workshop, several students are learning the trade. He accumulates ash logs near a wall. “I collect as much as I can to make innings. As ash trees are now killed by the borer, they are becoming rare. »
“It is certain that the Aboriginal people were fooled into colonization. No doubt about it. But when we look at what the making of an ax represents and the usefulness it had in the woods, this exchange for fur pelts were perhaps not as disadvantageous as we would like to believe,” says a thoughtful Mathieu Collette. Its reproduction is perfect. Only its craftsman’s mark, applied to the almost finished piece, will distinguish it from objects of the past. “That way, when we find my ax somewhere, we will be able to distinguish it from the real ones produced during the time of New France. Otherwise, to the eye, they really are the same…”
In the Middle Ages, on the very large construction sites of European cathedrals, carpenters used large axes. They were known as doloires. These are the same axes that were used for public beheadings… These instruments are designed to square up logs and then adjust the pieces to each other. They allow, depending on their characteristics, to be used on the left or right side of a piece of wood. Others allow centered use. The precision of these tools, created according to the needs of the workers, favored the appearance of specialized blacksmiths: tailors.
In France, in the tailoring workshops of La Maison Luquet in Alsace, Mathieu Colette set up for a time with other enthusiasts to serve Notre-Dame de Paris. He explored known processes for rediscovering the sharpness and swing of tools used in the past. “We carried out tests to produce around sixty axes. They have since been used to create the parts of the frame that are to be assembled. »
Kept silent
During the duration of the preparation work, Mathieu Collette was held to secrecy, as if it were a highly delicate military operation. The magazine of blacksmiths of France mentioned this spring a large meeting of blacksmiths challenged to reproduce old tools, but without indicating for what purpose… “There were a few teams of blacksmiths who took turns to work on this project” , specifies Mathieu Collette. “We couldn’t talk about it. It was forbidden. »
Excavations in the rubble of the cathedral fire have provided a better understanding of how the stones were supported by metal staples made by medieval blacksmiths. An analysis of the iron in these thousands of staples shows that 80% of the material was recycled. “People knew the demanding work involved in producing new metals. It was easier to recycle what they already had. It was smart to use what was around them before thinking about using new materials,” explains Mathieu Collette. In other words, the builders of the cathedrals reasoned quite differently from us, putting recycled material at the top of their choices when building.
The Notre-Dame project, which must be completed for the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024, was led until last month by General Jean-Louis Georgelin. He died during a simple hike in the Pyrenees. “At the end of the year, we will see the spire in the sky of Paris,” the general said last July, during a rehearsal for the assembly of the first floor of the spire of the famous cathedral. . Mathieu Collette follows the construction site from afar, while being passionate about his own: the creation of a real school and a museum in the building which houses the Forges de Montréal.