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

by John Biggs

  Marie-Antoinette, strolling with her ladies-in-waiting from room to room, was exposed to a riot of styles, colors, and inspirations. One clock, complete with Medusas, reclining sphinxes, and a winged Apollo, looked more like a reliquary for spent time than a mere timepiece. The face of the clock itself was staid and out-of-place, for its dark case was covered in curlicues and engraved flowers; golden accents, so finely wrought as to appear vibrantly life-like, popped from the case’s face; spiral feet shaped like narwhal horns completed the decadent picture.

  Another clock looked like something from an astronomer’s fever dream. Over two meters high, it featured a glass globe on the top containing a miniature representation of the solar system and the constellations of the zodiac. The face was chased with gold, and the gold hands looked like sprigs of herbs, while the seconds hand ticked around solidly. Marie-Antoinette was delighted by one feature especially: four tiny windows showing the year, date, month, and day above a unique moon-phase register with a jolly, if wan, moon peeking over two hills of gold.

  In the Petit Trianon, the small palace that served as Marie-Antoinette’s private redoubt, the clocks were smaller models, featuring a large white face and only a minimum of ornate gilding. Her taste was much more subdued than the Bourbon family’s, and amid the oppressive complexity of her life, a clock ticking on a mantle offered quiet reassurance.

  Even her dressing room was no safe harbor from time. One piece, a small jewelry box displaying a pair of courtiers at leisure, was topped by a small watch guarded by cherubs and crowned with a small bust of a young girl with flowing hair.

  In an era of relative imprecision, all these clocks were kept in perfect synchronization. The king’s day was regimented into an hourly plan with special times dedicated to church, affairs of state, and appearances before the people. The royal day was so codified, particularly during the rule of Louis XIV, that members of the citizenry were given leave to watch the king go to bed in a special ceremonial chamber.

  And so, among the army of assistants and handymen at Versailles, were the horlogers du roi. The horloger on duty made rounds daily, winding each clock and setting it according to the Regulator — a large-faced watch with the hour hand on one register and the minute hand on another smaller one — that he would carry with him. These portable Regulators were a copy of the larger Regulator clocks that most watchmakers kept on their walls, some of them so well-made that they lasted an entire year without winding.51 Most of the watches that Versailles’ many courtiers carried had to be set in the same way whenever they stopped, which was often.

  The draftiness of Versailles posed another challenge: While not as difficult as maintaining a clock onboard a ship or in a carriage clattering over rough European roads, ensuring precision in areas of varying temperature and humidity was a struggle. Royal watchmakers also had to deal with broken crystals, snagged gears, and shattered enamel from watches that revelers dropped on the palace’s cold marble floors.

  At Versailles, the horlogers du roi were considered valets de chambre and, as such, were given access to the king’s quarters at eight o’clock each morning, a time when the king was expected to at least feign a deep sleep before being officially awoken by courtiers. There were usually only three horlogers appointed at any one time, and each received two-hundred livres for four months of service a year, splitting the year into thirds. While for the most part they were glorified clock inspectors, their position of power and access to the king’s intimate spaces made them an important part of the king’s day. In addition, they received from their guild permission to cast bronze – a unique privilege in a guild system that compartmentalized the trades. Watchmakers could not, for instance, cast gold, because that would impinge on the goldsmith’s guild, while lockmakers were eventually forbidden from doing clockwork. The king’s watchmakers also received a workspace at the Louvre and could hire as many assistants as they wanted. Thus, securing this official appointment ensured a brisk trade.

  The ascension of Louis and Marie to the throne took place just when watches were approaching almost a public mania in France. If clocks symbolized success and comfort, then the new pocket watches signified the ultimate version of those attainments. To own a watch was to be connected with the adventure in the New World and to take part in the burgeoning interest in science and technology. Watches weren’t just talismans of power. They were now icons of a new, forward-looking era marked by exploration and intellectual inquiry.

  As such, they were a staple of literate conversation and naturally on the mind of a well-bred young man making his Grand tour. In Basel, Axel Fersen had been amused to learn that the town clock always ran an hour fast, supposedly ever since the magistrate had learned of plans to murder him and fooled the conspirators by changing the time. At Fernay, on the French border, a wrinkled, scarlet-waistcoated Voltaire had shown Fersen the part of his house where, as Fersen noted in his diary, the satirist put up “all the watchmakers of Geneva.” A love of watches was by now trickling down even to the lower classes, and Fersen saw boys of school age running around with tin pocket watches of dubious quality.

  Watches frequently served as gifts, and because one looked at them many times a day, they were often painted or inscribed with terms of endearment. Marie-Antoinette passed out fifty-two snuff boxes and fifty-one watches to the guests at her wedding in May 1770.

  The Abbé Marie was responsible for introducing Breguet not only to Versailles but also to his future wife, Cécile-Marie-Louise L’huillier, a twenty-three-year-old beauty with whose family he was close. Their courtship was brief and the marriage itself on August 28, 1775, brought further advantages. The girl’s older brother was an agent to the Comte d’Artois, Louis XVI’s brother. Without such inter-family ties, Breguet would never have been able to move in the rarified circles in which he now found himself. Tracing back the skein of happenstance that had brought him to this point must have been baffling and thrilling. If Breguet’s father had not died, the boy would probably have stayed in Neuchâtel, perhaps becoming a merchant, or, if family tradition held, a pastor. Now, he was a watchmaker to the French court.

  As his wife helped prepare the rooms of No. 51, on the Quai, as a home for their coming family, for the first time in years Breguet settled into a life of domestic happiness. His stepfather saw to it that he was kept in parts and ebauche, with regular shipments from Switzerland, and his family there kept up regular communications.

  The French court would supply a ready stream of revenue for the company as it grew. The rise of Louis XVI to the throne made the economy “favorable to both the arts and commerce.”52 Even as dark clouds began to mass on the horizon, in the years leading up to the death of the old king, France enjoyed an economic boom. Joseph Marie Terray, Louis XV’s finance minister, had increased government revenue – through a series of taxes and reforms – to about eighty million livres and reduced deficits to twenty-five million.53 While his actions angered many French and led to the “flour war,” a precursor to the Revolution caused by a rise of bread prices due to government control of reserve flour, the nobles had enough confidence to invest in a young man with a talent for watchmaking.

  Breguet’s goal was to reduce the size of his watches, at least partly by reducing the number of moving parts and their complexity. While the prevailing baroque style required a great deal of ornate millwork and engraving, Breguet was satisfied with the simplest movement possible. One of his watches contained a large mainspring, connected to a small, square key fitting for winding, and a strikingly simple movement — essentially a few gears connected to a large and finely wrought balance wheel, with a large regulating pin designed to improve the accuracy of the watch. Even in its simplicity, the watch also had a quarter repeater, which chimed the time to the nearest quarter hour. Everything superfluous had been removed — it was a machine designed for one purpose, with little, if any, ostentation, and was so different from the watches his colleagues were making that even masters on the Quai couldn’t fathom
or re-create the timepieces coming out of Breguet’s shop.

  Breguet’s showroom filled up quickly with customers and employees. It was cramped, but for the time being, the attic atelier was sufficient for his needs. Breguet liked to keep his watchmakers busy making new and ever more impressive complications and often outsourced the assembly of his simpler watches, allowing him to dedicate his time to design and finishing.

  Some of his watches made their way into the pockets of courtiers, but many ended up in harsher climates. The war in America was coming to a head, and soldiers of higher breeding needed watches to carry overseas. Breguet’s timepieces, stripped of ornamentation and almost impervious to shock and damage, began riding in the coat pockets of allied soldiers bound from France to Boston and parts west.

  The business grew steadily. Breguet started receiving regular commissions from royal courtiers, and dukes, ladies, and representatives of the king himself (to judge from the limited records that remain) frequented his shop.

  Breguet’s young family, too, seemed blessed. His first son, Antoine-Louis, was born in 1776, and two years later his wife gave birth again, to Francois-Louis. The boys were baptized in the church of Saint-Barthelemy, the small parish church of the Île de la Cité.54 Like young Abraham-Louis, sitting in rapt attention at the feet of travelers at his father’s Inn in Les Verrieres, the boys spent their days listening to watchmakers describe their discoveries and chat about politics and history. It was seemingly a charmed existence – a young watchmaker with a beautiful family, all living on the most magnificent street in the history of horological science. Breguet was soon selling perpetuelles to nearly everyone at court including the king and queen. He spent long hours at his bench, reveling in the opportunity to think carefully though the thorny problems of horology.

  Then calamity struck. Francois-Louis died when he was two. Cecile-Marie-Louise was pregnant again, and gave birth to a girl, Charlotte, but the baby died only hours later. And then Cecile-Marie-Louise herself died on May 11, 1780, perhaps of fever. She was just twenty-eight.

  Breguet’s world snapped shut like a watchcase. He called for his young sister-in-law Suzanne-Elisabeth to come and raise his child. He would never remarry. The loss changed him, reducing his world to a few primary things – his watches, the business, and his long-term projects. Until then, he essentially ignored little Antoine-Louis. Breguet’s wife had been his only love outside of the workshop. Now, he dedicated himself obsessively to the business and his clients, ensuring the shop’s continued growth even after three shattering deaths in his small family.

  The work was difficult. Fashion changed almost daily at court, and men and women both would clamor for one design one day and another completely different design the next. Breguet boldly removed all fashion-chasing from his watchmaking process, creating one of the first brands that stood on its own merit rather than reacting to national whimsy. No Breguet piece was alike – they did not mass-produce – and so every Breguet piece had its own unique construction but a definite and recognizable style.

  As a young widower, he often received invitations to Versailles as well as to major salons in the city. He was also expected to attend balls at the behest of the queen. In this rarified environment, Breguet found himself countless times proposing diamond-studded watches for the ladies (not for the queen, who loved pearls) — and gold or silver hunting watches for the men. The always business-like Breguet disliked, but tolerated, the extravagant frivolity of the balls.

  His deference and understanding smile, even in the face of notoriously dissolute royal appointees, made him popular at court. He was close to a number of the most important men and women in the country, and his wide-ranging network of Swiss expatriates gave him entrée almost everywhere else. When he crossed the channel, a close friend and admirer, the delightfully named Mr. Disney-Flytche,55 often gave Breguet a pocketbook full of banknotes “in order that he should be spared want when he came to England.”56

  The watchmakers at his shop usually cared for his young son and they treated the boy as one of their own even as his stern, taciturn father groomed him to become the next owner of the firm. He had large shoes to fill, as Breguet’s shop was now a landmark for Paris’ upper classes. From the beginning, Breguet kept a logbook of watch sales, and his notations (“pour la reine” — “for the queen” was a popular one) were a who’s who of pre-revolutionary France, as well as a schematic history of timekeeping. He had risen far and fast and the watches he was making were as distant from the earliest clocks as the wooden club was from the flintlock rifle.

  He was known on the Quai as a kind employer and a trustworthy shopkeeper, quick to laugh and to offer a young apprentice the chance to learn in a major house. He had a propensity to generosity. When a workman brought in a piece for inspection and then presented a bill, Breguet was said to have added a small tail to any final zeros, turning them into 9s. Young men in Breguet’s factory were always encouraged with the words “Do not be discouraged, or allow failure to dishearten you.”57

  In the pantheon of stars on the Quai, Breguet would shine brightest. For that matter, by the estimation of his peers and customers at Versailles and beyond, he was the finest watchmaker anywhere. Known for his perpetuelles, for never making the same watch twice, for a fresh, modern style that combined technical and aesthetic innovation, he rose to fashion at a pivotal moment. The very concentration of wealth that was subtly beginning to tear France apart was fuelling a golden age of watches, and the very people for whom he was making those watches were running out of time.

  Chapter 7

  Meanwhile, in Versailles, the elite played by candlelight. It was a glorious night. Marie’s closest friends, Fersen included, all dressed in white and retired to Petit Trianon. There, on the lush green lawn, they danced, drank, and wandered in a haze around the grounds. All through the night, the guests took a small ferryboat to and from the Temple de l’Amour in the heart of Marie-Antoinette’s private garden. Lights burned at the foot of every bush, casting puckish shadows on the participants. Workers had dug a trench around the temple and lit a bonfire, making the whole structure look like it was floating in a sea of flame. King Gustav of Sweden, whom Fersen was accompanying in Europe, wrote to his brother that it was “a spectacle worthy of the Elysian fields.”58

  That evening, as the revelers unwound and the dark fell over the palace, Marie-Antoinette gave Fersen a datebook, embroidered by her own hand. In neat stitching, in perfect French, the queen of this fairy kingdom wrote her secret love a short poem:

  “Faith, Love, and Hope

  Three united forever.”59

  The page was dated June 21, 1784. That evening, a magical one to say the least, occurred at the apex of Fersen and Marie-Antoinette’s close friendship. The intervening years had been hard on both the soldier and the queen. Fresh from the fields of Philadelphia, Fersen cast about Europe looking for work and love in Paris. The queen faced increased scrutiny and she now retired to the Trianon with her children. She had changed much from the coquettish child bride Fersen met at the ball years before.

  Fersen, too, was no longer the noble horsemen and icy lover. He was beset economically and emotionally. Marie-Antoinette’s favor had cemented Fersen’s position in her coterie of friends and, in many ways, made him hers forever. He searched heedlessly for something to light upon, and so on his return he petitioned his father to send him 100,000 livres to buy the Royal Suédois, a Swedish proprietary regiment stationed in France. In the 1700s, proprietary regiments were usually made up of mercenary fighters stationed in a foreign country and led by a non-French commander. While these regiments were military in nature – the Swiss Guards are a well-known proprietary regiment – they offered prestige and entrée to the owners. They brought some income, but as one historian points out, the current analog would be to a rich man owning a baseball team,60 complete with the associated costs.

  Only July 15, 1793, a year before the fete at Petit Trianon, many historians believe that Fersen
and Marie-Antoinette became lovers. In his correspondence log, Fersen referred to her as “Josephine.” In his diaries, he referred to her simply as “Elle”: She. His diary notes he stayed “chez Elle.” He used the word chez when he meant a sexual dalliance and Elle, as we know, was always and forever Marie-Antoinette. Did he and the queen make love in the octagonal meridienne bedroom that warm summer?61 While all signs point to a consummated passion that year, least of all the commission left with Breguet, and, though much of Fersen’s diary was destroyed from those romantic years, we know he yearned for her all his life and that their relationship was closer than most assumed. Further proof appeared in another letter Fersen wrote to his sister describing buying “Josephine” a puppy. In the same month Marie herself describes her new puppy in detail in another letter, thus confirming the Josephine connection. With evidence as obviously circumstantial as this it is difficult to assess the truth. However, all historians agree on one thing: the two were, in the end, as close as blood.

  That summer Fersen could not stay in France. His father called him back to Sweden and it was torture. During Fersen’s next five weeks in Paris, the soldier was able to see the queen often, spending many evenings at Petit Trianon. Their relationship intensified, and when he left Paris in August, headed back to Stockholm with Gustav, he wrote six letters to Marie in the first nine days. Thus they continued to speak, even as miles and situation separated them. They were lovers crossed by more than one dark star.

  Fersen visited Versailles again in May of 1785, and over the next several years would spend extended periods in Paris; rumors spread that he and Marie would meet secretly at the Petit Trianon, arriving separately on horseback. In 1787 the queen gave Fersen a Breguet perpetuelle with a guilloché-engraved dial and the intertwined letters A and F engraved on the case.