Saint-Michel bell tower

On January twenty-second, sixteen seventy-six, the municipal magistrates of Bordeaux summoned building contractors: the Saint-Michel bell tower was to be dismantled. For a master craftsman who lived on city commissions, it was a huge contract—and dangerous work on Bordeaux's tallest tower. No one came. The record gives no explanation: it is unknown whether people were deterred by the height, the payment terms, or the order itself.

The order came from Louis XIV, King of France, who was seeking obedience from a city that had recently rebelled. A year earlier, Bordeaux craftsmen had risen up against new levies on stamped paper, tobacco, and the stamping of pewterware. For a master who earned his living by selling such ware, the tax meant paying on goods that had yet to be sold. Saint-Michel was considered one of the main rebellious districts.

The basilica's separate bell tower could serve as an observation post, while its alarm bells could summon people. So after the unrest was suppressed, Louis XIV decided to deprive the district of both its bells and the tower itself. The bells were removed at once. Then came the order to dismantle the entire stone giant.

But the order ran up against an empty tender. Not one contractor named a price or took the job. Later, the people of Bordeaux turned this into a story of universal silent resistance; the documents confirm only that there were no willing bidders. Four years later, Vauban, the royal military engineer charged with assessing Bordeaux's fortifications, wrote directly to the king that destroying one of Europe's finest towers would be a mistake. Demolition was never considered again. Bells returned here only in sixteen ninety-one.

In front of the basilica stands that same separate stone tower, once designated for dismantling. Its present openwork top is newer: a storm destroyed the former top, and the architect Paul Abadie rebuilt the spire in the nineteenth century. The bells removed after the rebellion no longer ring here—the present carillon of twenty-two bells was installed in eighteen sixty-five.