The spiral spring was invented in the time of Charles VII.: a band of very fine steel, rolled up into a small drum or barrel, produced, in unrolling, the effect of the weights on the primitive movements. To the possibility of enclosing that moving power in a confined space is due the facility of manufacturing very small clocks. In fact, one finds in certain collections, clocks of the time of Louis XI., remarkable not only for the artistic richness of their decoration, but still more so for the small space they occupy, although they are generally of very complicated mechanism; some marking the date of the month, striking the hour, and serving also as alarm-clocks.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the exact date of the invention of watches. But, in truth, we ought perhaps to regard the watch, especially after the invention of the spiral spring, as only the last step taken towards a portable form of clock. It is however true, according to the statements found in Pancirole and Du Verdier by the authors of the “Encyclopædia of Sciences,” that at the end of the fifteenth century watches were made no larger than an almond. Even the names Myrmécides and Carovagius are cited as those of two celebrated artisans in such work. It was said that the latter made an alarm-watch which not only sounded the hour required, but even struck a light to ignite a candle. Besides, we know for certain that, in the time of Louis XI., there were watches very small yet perfectly manufactured; and it is proved that, in 1500, at Nuremberg, Peter Hele made them of the form of an egg, and consequently the watches of that country were long known as Nuremberg eggs.
We learn, moreover, from history that in 1542, a watch which struck the hours, set in a ring, was offered to Guidobaldo of Rovere; and that in 1575, Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, bequeathed to his brother Richard a cane of Indian wood having a watch placed in its head; and, finally, that Henry VIII. of England wore a very small watch requiring to be wound up only every eighth day.
It is not inappropriate here to remark that the time kept by these little machines was not regular until an ingenious workman, whose name has not come down to us, invented the fusee, a kind of truncated cone; to the base of this was attached a small piece of catgut which, spirally rolling itself up to the top, became fastened to the barrel that enclosed the spring. The advantage of this arrangement is, that owing to the conical form of the fusee, the traction of the spring acting as it relaxes on a greater radius of the cone, it results in establishing equilibrium of power between the first and the last movements of the spring. Subsequently a clockmaker named Gruet substituted jointed (articulées) chains for catgut; the latter having the great disadvantage of being hygrometric and varying in tension with the state of the atmosphere.
The use of watches spread rapidly in France. In the reigns of the Valois, a large number were made of very diminutive size, to which the clockmakers gave all sorts of forms, especially those of an acorn, an almond, a Latin cross, a shell ([Figs. 148 to 150]). They were engraved, chased, enamelled; the hand which marked the hour was very frequently of delicate workmanship, and sometimes ornamented with precious stones. Some of these watches set in motion symbolic figures, as well as Time, Apollo, Diana, the Virgin, the Apostles, and the saints.
It may be conceived that all these complicated works required numerous craftsmen. It was therefore considered proper to unite these artisans in a community. The statutes which they had received from Louis XI. in 1483 were confirmed by Francis I. They contained a succession of laws, intended to protect at the same time the interests of members of the corporation and the dignity of their profession.
No one was admitted as master but on proof of having served eight years of apprenticeship, and after having produced a chef-d’œuvre in the
CLOCK OF DAMASCENED IRON AND WATCHES Of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.