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Alexandre Schmid. <\/p>\n
Thomas Kern \/ SWI swissinfo.ch <\/p>\n
When the bell of Lausanne cathedral strikes ten, work begins for Alexandre Schmid, who shouts the hour to the east, north, west and south (in that order). It is his job as the guet, the night watchman who has been keeping watch over the city for over 600 years. Today he is a symbol of local identity.\n<\/p>\n
This content was published on <\/p>\n
June 13, 2026 – 11:00\n<\/p>\n
Schmid puffs, pushing hard on the pedals of his bicycle. Then, when he is completely out of breath, he gets off and pushes it up the steep streets of Lausanne. His destination, the cathedral, is at the top; he lives at the bottom, near the station.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a rainy and windy evening and it\u2019s 9:45pm. There\u2019s no hurry. There\u2019s still time to lean the old bike against a wall, to climb the 153 steps of the bell tower, to put on the felt cap and the black cloak. To put on the guet.<\/p>\n
\u2018C\u2019est le guet. Il a sonn\u00e9 dix!\u2019<\/p>\n
Alexandre Schmid, 34, has been the chief guardian of Lausanne\u2019s Notre-Dame Cathedral for about two years. It\u2019s a profession from a bygone past. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a magnificent place. I marvel every time I go up here. I enjoy a unique view of the city. I love Lausanne,\u201d he says, his raven beard illuminated by the dim light of the lantern hanging from the parapet. Suddenly, the wind carries the striking of the hours of the Saint-Fran\u00e7ois church clock. It\u2019s almost time.<\/p>\n
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At the stroke of every hour, between 10pm and 2am, Alexandre Schmid calls out the time in all four directions. <\/p>\n
Thomas Kern \/ SWI swissinfo.ch <\/p>\n
Schmid sticks his index fingers in his ears. Soon afterwards, the cathedral\u2019s centuries-old bell strikes ten times. Up here, 30 metres above the base of the imposing Gothic building, it is deafening. When the echo dies away above the rooftops of the city, it is up to him to announce the hour. He puts his funnel-shaped hands in front of his mouth and shouts at the top of his lungs to the east: \u201cC\u2019est le guet. Il a sonn\u00e9 dix! Il a sonn\u00e9 dix!\u201d (\u201cIt\u2019s the guet. Ten o\u2019clock has struck! Ten o\u2019clock has struck!\u201d). <\/p>\n
Then he takes the lantern off the hook, moves to the north side and repeats the announcement. The west and south follow.<\/p>\n
>>Hear the night watchman announce 10pm in this video from the City of Lausanne:<\/p>\n
External Content <\/p>\n
Guardian of a centuries-old tradition<\/p>\n
For one hour, his task is over. Schmid re-enters the loge du guet (the guardian\u2019s lodge), indicated by a wooden plaque hanging on the door. It is a kind of alcove, a room of a few square metres with wooden walls, heated by an electric stove.<\/p>\n
He hangs his hat and cloak on a nail. \u201cThe term guet comes from the French verb guetter (to watch over, to keep an eye on),\u201d explains Schmid, who spends five nights a week, from 10pm to 2am, at the top of the bell tower, punctuating the night with his voice. He neither keeps watch nor rings the bells; he is simply the guardian of a centuries-old tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first documented mention of the presence of a guet de la cath\u00e9drale dates back to November 4, 1405. However, this figure existed much earlier. His main task was to sound the alarm in the event of a fire,\u201d says the current incumbent, who studied history at university and now manages to combine his passion for the past with a profession that is lost in the mists of time. \u201cThe guet also had to ring and shout the hours, as well as watch over public order in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
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More <\/p>\n
Swiss oddities\n <\/p>\n
The Zytglogge, the mechanical heart of the city of Bern <\/p>\n
This content was published on <\/p>\n
Jul 5, 2025 <\/p>\n
The Zytglogge in Bern has one of the very few astronomical clocks in Europe that still works and is fully mechanical. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Read more: The Zytglogge, the mechanical heart of the city of Bern \u201cIn the Middle Ages,\u201d he continues, \u201chouses were made almost entirely of wood and straw. The only way to cook or get warm was to light a fire, and so there were blazes all the time. When this happened, the only way to put them out was to form a human chain and pass buckets of water to each other. It was ineffective and often entire neighbourhoods burnt.\u201d<\/p>\n The two bells to the left and right of the belfry chime the hours. Graffiti found inside the church bells suggests that some visitors climbed the tower unofficially. <\/p>\n Thomas Kern \/ SWI swissinfo.ch <\/p>\n Pillar of the fire surveillance system<\/p>\n One of the most serious fires in Lausanne occurred in 1405: most of the houses around the cathedral went up in flames. According to a report of the time, drawn up by the neighbourhood delegates and the city\u2019s bishop, one of the causes was the delay by the sentries in raising the alarm. \u201cWhen he saw a fire, the cathedral watchman would take a hammer and strike a bell to warn the population,\u201d Schmid says. \u201cBut that night he realised too late. He had probably fallen asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n Although he was not the only one keeping watch. Someone else was on lookout in the bell tower of the church of Saint-Fran\u00e7ois. There were other watchmen, \u201con the ground\u201d, who made the rounds in the neighbourhoods. \u201cThey communicated with each other by shouting, signalling outbreaks and announcing the time. It was also a way of making sure that a colleague had not fallen asleep on his watch, perhaps after staying too long in a tavern,\u201d Schmid explains.<\/p>\n Until the beginning of the 20th century, the cathedral night watchman remained the mainstay of Lausanne\u2019s fire watch system. Over the decades, however, it gradually lost importance. In 1907 the alarm was entrusted to the city sirens and no longer to the guet, who nevertheless continued to guard the tower day and night. The real change came after the war, with the installation of an automatic clock and a mechanised system for ringing the bells. From then on, the function of the guet was limited to announcing the hours. In the past, it was a service mainly for those who could not read the time or count.<\/p>\n Part of the city\u2019s identity<\/p>\n From 1960, faced with an increasing difficulty in finding candidates for this position, the Lausanne authorities decided to limit its employment to the 10pm to 2am slot.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the usefulness of the guet has been stripped of any real substance, this role has moved into another category \u2013 certainly more fantastical, perhaps more mythical. The watchman becomes a timeless figure who amazes and fascinates,\u201d reads the description on the website of Living Traditions in SwitzerlandExternal link<\/a>.<\/p>\n At night, Schmid has the peace and quiet \u2013 and the time \u2013 to devote to his reading. Tonight he\u2019s reading a book about class struggle in the Roman Empire. <\/p>\n Thomas Kern \/ SWI swissinfo.ch <\/p>\n Is it perhaps this apparent futility that makes the guet such a legendary character, we ask Schmid somewhat provocatively. \u201cI think it\u2019s the fact of being out of time that makes this figure so fascinating,\u201d he replies. <\/p>\n \u2018The meaning of this profession lies above all in the link with the past and in the affection that the people of Lausanne feel towards it. It\u2019s an element that helps shape the identity of the city and its inhabitants, making us say: \u2018Elsewhere is not like here!’\u201d<\/p>\n And indeed, the cities in Europe with a night watch active 365 days a year can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Ripon in the UK, Krakow in Poland, Ystad in Sweden, and Annaberg and Celle in Germany.<\/p>\n The attachment of the population of Lausanne to the cathedral\u2019s guet <\/p>\n In addition to Alexandre Schmid, there are also seven deputy guardians, including Cassandre Berdoz, who in 2021 became the first woman in history to hold this position.<\/p>\n Although technical progress has rendered the original function of the guet useless, Lausanne has never wanted to give up its night watch.<\/p>\n In 1946, the moving of the guet\u2018s room from the second to the first floor of the tower caused great concern among the inhabitants. They feared it was the beginning of the disappearance of this figure they were so fond of.<\/p>\n In 1960, when the authorities decided to limit the presence of the guet on the tower to four hours at night, from 10pm to 2am, headlines in local newspapers included \u201cSauvons le guet\u201d (Save the guet) and \u201cSerait-ce l\u2019agonie du guet?\u201d (Will this be the death throes of the guet?). A sign of the deep attachment of the people of Lausanne to a tradition that has become part of the town\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n No regrets<\/p>\n A lover of tranquillity and books, Alexandre Schmid had no doubts when he found out that the city was looking for a new cathedral keeper. <\/p>\n He picked up the baton from Renato H\u00e4usler, who, from 1987 to 2002 as deputy, then as incumbent until 2024, had devoted almost four decades to this function. Inside a cupboard door in the tower room, H\u00e4usler left a silent trace of the time spent in the tower: a very long series of dashes, marked with a biro, one for each night spent above the roofs of Lausanne. There were 3,398 dashes.<\/p>\n After chatting for almost an hour, Schmid gets up, picks up his hat and cloak from the nail. He has to go back outside to shout the hour. At the door, we ask whether, two years on, he regrets his decision. \u201cNo, never,\u201d he says with a smile, as he scans the city lights at his feet. \u201cTo leave such a place, I\u2019d have to find another one just as exceptional. But I don\u2019t think it exists.\u201d<\/p>\n More <\/p>\n Have you ever heard anything peculiar about Switzerland that you found interesting? <\/p>\n Is there anything peculiar related to Switzerland that has caught your interest? Share it with us, and we might feature it in an article!\n <\/p>\n
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