The ambitious Frenchman's self-winding watches fascinated Marie-Antoinette. Her husband, Louis XVI, was also impressed with them and owned several. One day the doomed Queen decided that she wanted a watch with a perpetual repeating calendar as well as a self-winding mechanism and challenged the watchmaker to craft one. Hearing of this, an admirer, perhaps Count Axel Fersen, commissioned probably the most famous watch of all time for his beautiful Queen - the Marie-Antoinette. This amazing watch had a perpetual calender, a chiming repeater, a thermemeter, a power-reserve indicator and a chronograph. It was also lovely looking.
Unfortunately, the Breguet watch wasn't completed until 1827, long after the Queen was sent to the guillotine.
Here is a video about the watch:
Marie-Antoinette Watch
Next Time: The amazing story of the theft and possible recovery of the Marie-Antoinette watch.
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2 comments:
What an amazing piece of craftsmanship!
Even with today's technology, it would be a challenge to create a precision timepiece such as the one crafted by hand in the late-eighteenth/early nineteenth century.
A very tasteful blog.
Like yourself, I am a writer who has recently published an historic-fiction novel.
I invite you to visit my site at garyross.ca.
All the best,
Gary
Hi Gary,
Thank you very much for your comment! I like your site.
Unfortunately, I haven't written a historical novel - only 10,000 words of one!
Best Regards,
Viola
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