Tea at Trianon: Napoleon’s Timepieces

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, November 24, 2023

Napoleon’s Timepieces

From The Times:

In 1798, a month before the 29-year-old General Bonaparte would set out on his Egyptian campaign to consolidate his power, he visited the Breguet establishment on the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris. There he purchased three timekeepers: a repeating pocket watch (with which you could hear the hours chime and therefore know what the time was in the dark); a travelling calendar and repeating clock, the first of its kind; and a perpétuelle (early automatic) repeating pocket watch. Napoleon’s interest in Breguet watches was shared with his great enemy, the Duke of Wellington, who bought a montre à tact (tactile watch) in 1814, when he became ambassador to Paris, and another celebrating his victory at the Battle of Waterloo, given as a gift to a close friend on his staff.

But this wasn’t just about being on time for battle. Napoleon was a bit of a parvenu, on a meteoric rise through the ranks of social and political life, requiring objects that semaphored social status. Likewise, the rest of the Bonaparte family were keen acquirers of classy timepieces. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, whom he had appointed King of Spain, commissioned a pocket watch decorated with a map of Spain from Breguet. When the British Army, under Wellington’s command, drove the French out of the Iberian peninsula in 1813, Joseph churlishly refused to buy the timepiece, which was now a reminder of French failure. (The story goes that Wellington bought it in 1815, enjoying the irony that a watch made for Napoleon’s brother ended up as a symbol of British victory.) Meanwhile, Joséphine, Napoleon’s first wife, ordered a number of watches from Breguet, including a “small medallion timepiece”.

Caroline Murat, Napoleon’s younger sister and the queen of Naples, reigning from 1808 until 1815 with her husband the king, Joachim Murat, had a special relationship with Abraham-Louis Breguet, the founder of the watchmaking company. This resulted in the creation of the very first wristwatch. At the time men wore their pocket watches tucked into a waistcoat or other pocket. They were fiddly, requiring both hands to open them to view the hour. Women wore daintier, ornamental versions, often as brooches. Breguet came up with the revolutionary idea of a watch designed specifically for Caroline to wear on the wrist. Commissioned in 1810, it was delivered two years later, when Queen Caroline was in Naples, having taken over the affairs of state while the king had gone on the Russian campaign alongside her brother, Emperor Napoleon. Costing 5,000 francs, it was a slim repeating oblong-shaped watch, interestingly equipped with a thermometer (an early example of wearable tech) and secured on a slender bracelet of hair entwined with gold thread as a functional, decorative strap.

We know all this because Breguet documented and still maintains details of its clients in its registers and archives, and Napoleon was one of the most famous (along with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, as well as King George IV and Czar Alexander I). Queen Caroline continued to support Breguet, particularly during the years when Europe was in turmoil (and he had lost some of his best clients), acquiring a total of 34 pieces — some intended as gifts — during her lifetime. (Read more.)