INAUGURATION OF THE
 " NORMANDY LIBERTY BELL"

Inauguration of the " Normandy Liberty Bell "
Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, on June 4^th,11h AM.

Origin of the project :
 

Commemoration of the 60^th Anniversary of D-Day Landing needed powerful and symbolic projects. Normandy Regional Council through Normandie Mémoire (Association coordinating all events regarding 60th Anniversary), ordered this project end of Year 2003.
 

A technical challenge :

Since the beginning, Cornille Havard Bell Foundry has been the technical partner and suggested to create a sounding replica of the Liberty Bell which cracked in the 1830s and then could not give its original sound.

In February 2004, the foundry made a very accurate measurement in the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia using laser scanning techniques to create a 3 dimensions map of the original bell.

After re-creating the original profile of the Liberty Bell which will give the original sound to the bell, the foundry started a traditional molding process using clay, goat hair and horse manure as Pass & Stow from Boston did in 1753.
 

After two and a half month of work, the bell was cast in bronze on May 19^th in Cornille Havard historic workshop in Villedieu les Poęles, Normandy, France.

Taken out of its mould on May 25^th, she will deliver her sound today for the first time. An 18^th Century sound, that one Ben Franklin heard when working on the Constitution of the United States of America in 1776.
 

A powerful icon

Using one of the most important symbol of American Patrimony (venerable relic) the Bell will bear a testimony of past exchanges and common values between our two countries and invite American People to come and discover or rediscover France and especially Normandy, Land of Freedom …

The Normandy Liberty Bell will be dedicated on June 4th 2004 where she will ring 12 times for I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-CE and 7 times for L-I-B-E-R-T-Y as the Liberty Bell did in Philadelphia on June 6, 1944 the morning of D-DAY Landing.