Marie-Antoinette's Watch: Adultery, Larceny & Perpetual Motion

Chapter 4

At the end of a long and languorous summer in 1782, horological legend records that a small carriage painted in enamel the color of pitch, with brightly colored red wheels, rattled onto the Quai de l'Horloge. The coachman yanked his reins, a pair of horses pulled up short in front of #51, and a man stepped out of the hack behind them.25

Above him, smoke puffed from the buildings' chimneys, bearing away byproducts of the metalwork taking place inside. A deeply canted roof ended in three wide windows along the roofline, and at street level a front casement window was inset under a large sign: Breguet. Behind the glass, the delicate timepieces on display were brilliant in the fading sunlight, a dozen captured stars.

Fersen had decided to commission a gift to the woman he loved. Given her taste for elegant understatement, he knew that a watch by Breguet, with its lack of exterior ornamentation, would perfectly suit her. He sent a letter requesting the piece, and now, with a bit of time to spare in Paris, he had come to place the order.

Fersen walked into the cool of Breguet's shop and heard the sharp ting-ting of hammers and the rasp of files in the attic atelier above. The air down below was clean and clear. The front windows faced the river, and behind the building the Place Dauphine kept the homes open and bright rather than cramped and tubercular. The rich wood of the showroom shone even in the low light, layers of wax and polish reflecting the sun from outside. This was the shop of a successful man, quiet and warm on the bottom floor and hive-ish with activity in the upstairs workshop.

Fersen, like his fellow officers, was well acquainted with Breguet and his ability to make watches that could survive war, water, and even short drops. Over the years, he had commissioned many watches from Breguet and also had several watches repaired by him. One, a silver soldier's watch, had accompanied him to the New World and returned still running as soundly as the day it had left the bench.

He also knew that the understated styling of Breguet's timepieces were exquisite and that the little watchmaker was pushing the state of the art forward with astounding regularity. A few weeks earlier, he had seen a Breguet watch with a large white face and Breguet's trademark blued "moon" or "Poppy" hands- a circle interrupting the long, thin hand at the tip and culminating in a sharp point. While other manufacturers clad their watches in jeweled cases that were more pomp than function, this watch was different. The Roman numerals were thin and precise, and the movement was perpetual - or automatic - meaning it wound with the motion of the wearer's body. It even had a hand showing how much power it had in reserve - a reserve d' marche - and, in addition, could chime the time to the nearest minute.

The watch hid its movement and many complications in a case as simple and elegant as the owner herself - Marie-Antoinette, whom Fersen knew to be much more modest in her tastes than her popular reputation would have suggested. Although rumors circulated that she traipsed through private rooms with floors paved in rubies and diamonds, he knew that she loved the understated work of his favorite watchmaker. The tide of fashion was changing, and she appreciated Breguet's subtle elegance, his way with dark and light, his sense of space and proportion.

None of Breguet's watches were particularly ornate. Instead, each gold or silver case was as sensuous as an August peach, but with a certain hard, diamond edge it was rare to find in an era of curlicues, cupids, and insipid rococo design. Fersen knew that here he would not find watches covered in diamonds or enameled in delicate pinks or blues. Not that the proprietor would turn down a commission if it came in the door - he had executed plenty of designs that would have matched any one of the Sun king's bejeweled antiques - but on the whole each one of these watches, signed Breguet a Paris, was a self-contained wonder, free of extraneous pomp and fuss. However impressive the watch Fersen had seen on the queen, he had come to Breguet's shop today to place an even more ambitious order.