It is quite clear that Geneva was out for quality in watches, and, indeed the name of the Swiss city has always been associated with quality. Nevertheless, they were no angels—those old Swiss craftsmen; they were in fact quite preponderatingly human. Thus it was not long before they began to make a tight little monopoly of their business. They restricted the number of workmen who might be admitted to the guild, and they secured special ordinances by means of which all other watchmakers were forbidden to establish themselves within a certain distance of the city. In other words, they did not purpose allowing the new and promising industry to grow beyond their control.
There were, however, other independent people in those days who hadn't the slightest intention of being bound by such restrictions. Here and there, a watchmaker left Geneva to carry on his work in some foreign city, as, for example, in Besancon, France. Thus began a competition which grew and spread as time went on.
This competition developed some interesting features. For example, the guild in Geneva obtained the passage of laws forbidding anyone from bringing into the city, in a finished state, a watch constructed within a certain distance. "Schemes" for watches and certain parts might be made at will, but only members of the citizen guild were permitted to complete these schemes.
Such restrictions naturally did not tend toward low-priced watches; but all watches in those days were necessarily high-priced, and a man wealthy enough to afford one was apt to seek the best that could be bought. Geneva's strictness gave it so great a reputation that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries foreign watchmakers flocked to the Swiss city very much as art students later journeyed to Paris, and it became the acknowledged center of the European industry. As time went on the demand for time-pieces became more widespread and many Genevans moved to other cities where they became dealers in Geneva watches. It is said that, in 1725, the city of Constantinople contained as many as eighty-eight mercantile agents who had become established in this way.
One hundred years after the founding of the guild, Geneva was producing five thousand watches a year, having one hundred masters of the guild and three hundred journeymen. Now five thousand watches is no small output when it is considered that each one must be constructed entirely by hand and occupied a matter of weeks in the making; yet, by 1799, the city contained nearly six thousand watchmakers and jewelers and was producing fifty thousand timepieces a year.
Not many miles to the northward from Geneva is another mountain city—that of Neuchatel. Neuchatel also contained an enterprising and skilful population, for the Swiss people seem to have been naturally ingenious and skilful in the use of tools. Doubtless the mountainous character of the country has had something to do with this fact; farming and fruit-raising are slow, hard work in their rocky soil and severe climate and the making of bulky articles is not desirable where transportation must be had over mountain trails.
The Swiss with their clever fingers had long been famous for their wood-carving; now, when they had a chance at an industry which called for delicate and skilful hand-work and which produced goods of small size and high value, it exactly suited them.
Geneva "saw it first," but kept it so closely to herself that it was several generations later before watches were known in the Neuchatel district not far away, yet, this district is another great center of the industry.
It is said that in 1680, more than one hundred years after Charles Cusin moved to Geneva, a horse-dealer from the little town of La Sagne, came home from his travels and brought with him an English watch. Great was the wonder that it excited among the simple people of his native place. They passed from hand to hand the little ticking mechanism which had the strange power to tell time, and then one day the ticking ceased, which perhaps is not surprising, in view of the freedom with which the watch had been handled.
The horse-dealer knew nothing of the mechanism but was very anxious to have the works set right. It chanced that there was a young locksmith in La Sagne, a lad of only fifteen, named Daniel Jean Richard, who was so skilful and ingenious that he had already made repairs in the tower clock of the village. "Show the watch to Daniel Jean Richard" said everybody.