The watch world is full of legends. Sometimes these turn out to be true and sometimes not, but the most persistent are the ones that seem as if they ought to be true, whether there is evidence for them or not.

The classic example is the Cartier Crash– for I don’t know how many years, the conventional wisdom was that the Crash was inspired by an actual Cartier model (a Baignoire, I think, or so the story went) which was partly melted in a fiery high-speed automobile crash. The truth as it happens is much more mundane but also much truer to the ingenuity of Jean-Jaques Cartier and his designer, Rupert Emmerson, who in the 1960s designed the Crash in London. This is of course not the only example, and from the myth that the first watch was invented by Peter Henlein, on down to present day, apocrypha like the idea that so-called “dynamic pressure” is dramatically different from static water resistance, persist.

It is as true in the watch world as anywhere else that you can’t keep a good story down.

The Watchmaker And The King

One story that I have been hearing for probably as long as I’ve been hearing the story about the Crash, is one having to do with Abraham-Louis Breguet. The story goes that Breguet was asked by Louis XVI to make a perfect watch, to which Breguet exclaimed, “Give me the perfect oil, sire, and I will make you a perfect watch!”

The story is partly convincing because it certainly sounds like something Breguet would have said. Breguet was well aware of the problems that aging oils caused in watch movements – his patent for the tourbillon, for instance, cites as one of its goals ensuring even distribution of oil on the balance pivots, which at least based on the patent’s language seemed at least as important to him as the reduction of errors due to the effect of gravity – more specifically, those arising from errors of poise in the balance and spring.

Still, I wasn’t content to just leave it at that. Of course the ideal situation would have been to interview Breguet himself, or maybe Louis XVI, but in both cases there are issues of availability.

I therefore did the next best thing, which was to get in touch with Montres Breguet and after finding out that no one in living memory had actually tried to verify the quote, I was asked if I would like to talk to Emmanuel Breguet, who is a seventh generation descendant of Abraham-Louis Breguet and who is also head of patrimony for the brand. As the brand’s chief historian, he has full access to the Breguet archives and it seemed obvious that if anyone did have evidence that Breguet had actually made the famous remark, it would be Emmanuel Breguet.

Emmanuel Breguet, as it turns out, was not particularly aware of his own renowned ancestor, at least not at first. Interviewed on Zoom, he recalled having to be reminded of his illustrious ancestor by a university professor.

Breguet’s Descendant Discovers The Past

“We had some souvenirs, some clocks in the living room,” he said, “My father would speak about aviation, because he lived during the glorious career of my grandfather, Louis Breguet, but he was not a fan of watchmaking. I discovered more when I was a student in Paris, at the Sorbonne, and I had a course with a teacher, a specialist in the history of technology. And one day, I asked him for subjects of investigation for potential theses, and he said, ‘Do you remember what your name is?’ I said, ‘Breguet, Emmanuel Breguet’ and he said, ‘And you, Emmanuel Breguet, you ask me for a subject of investigation?'” He laughed and added, “And it was this moment that I had a sort of ‘click’ to understand the importance of my family.”

Emmanuel Breguet has been with the company founded by his famous ancestor for many years. He contacted Breguet while it was still owned by Investcorp, and the company hired him, “… to take care of the history of the archives, the patrimony.” He would go on to write extensively about the company, including the book, Breguet, Watchmakers Since 1775: The Life and Legacy of Abraham-Louis Breguet, which was published in 1997.

The book in his view is complementary to what he regards as the indispensable technical history of the company and Abraham-Louis Breguet’s inventions, including the tourbillon – The Art Of Breguet, by George Daniels.

“I’m not a technician,” Emmanuel Breguet said, “I’m not a watchmaker, I’m a historian. And my target was to be complementary with the famous book, The Art Of Breguet, by George Daniels … for technical issues, for technical explanations, his book is better than mine. My target was to explain how Breguet succeeded, to explain how he was so well known in England, in Russia, in Turkey, Germany, and Italy. My contribution to the history of Breguet was to show and to prove how well organized he was, how he created one of the very first international networks for a luxury brand. Because today, it’s clear that luxury is international but at the beginning of the 19th century, Breguet was already internationally organized.”

Emmanuel Breguet notes that Abraham-Louis had to re-establish his entire network after returning to Paris after the French Revolution.

“He didn’t do it just once,” I said, “he did it two times and his ability as a manager, as someone who could handle the logistics necessary over the course of his life, to produce over 5,000 watches with an international distribution network, was quite incredible – and nobody ever talks about it.”

“Exactly,” Emmanuel Breguet said. “For me it is as interesting as the technical aspects. He never made two identical pieces. And it means he had to have a special way to drive the company – he could have organized a more simple production but he refused. To the end of his life, if there were ten watches, they were ten different pieces – a tourbillon, a quarter repeater, a montre à tact.”

“It’s incredible, and what’s incredible, too, is the relationship he had with so many people … I recently read the letters between him and his son during the stay of Abraham-Louis Breguet in London, in 1814, just after the fall of Napoleon. And Breguet had a meeting with the king, with different princes, with [the Duke of] Wellington … he was recognized, not just as an artist who made some elegant items, but as a scientist at the same level as the members of the Academy of Sciences of London or Paris.”

Emmanuel Breguet considers Abraham-Louis Breguet to have been an example of the best that the Age of Enlightenment could offer. “At that time,” he says, “the watchmaker was considered the only man able to reproduce and miniaturize the world … I think the tourbillon is the climax of this aspect, because the tourbillon, is really a world of astronomy. I investigated in old dictionaries to find the sense of the word ‘tourbillon’ in the 18th century. And the sense of ‘tourbillon’ is the solar system … the watchmaker is a person able to reproduce the universe.”

“It’s a word used by Descartes in the 17th century, and in the encyclopedia of Diderot. At the end of the 19th century, the sense of ‘tourbillon’ has changed and today, the sense of ‘tourbillon’ is not the same. Today, it means disorganized rotation and it’s something violent.”

The Perfect Oil: In Search Of A Legend

Now as I mentioned, the impetus behind the conversation with Emmanuel Breguet was originally to ask the one person who more than any other, would know if Breguet had actually made the remark attributed to him: “Give me a perfect oil, sire, and I will make you a perfect watch!”

Again, it certainly sounds like something Breguet would have said. There’s the fact that the distribution of lubricants was mentioned in the patent for the tourbillon as one of the benefits of the invention, and then, there were also other experiments conducted by Breguet to see if the flow of oil could be better controlled, especially at the impulse surfaces – once such experiment involved creating tiny reservoirs on the teeth of the escape wheel, to help retain oil in the correct position and to prevent it from spreading.

So is there any evidence that Breguet actually made this specific remark?

“To be honest,” says Emmanuel Breguet, “I have never found this sentence. However, I am preparing … a kind of Breguet dictionary, a glossary, from A to Z, with everything about Breguet that we know in it, and easy to find. Now I have never seen this sentence – we have manuscripts, letters, we have many things, but I don’t know who is the author of this. It’s possible he said it, but I never found this exact sentence.”

“But during my investigation, I found a receipt [recipe] a receipt of oil, because Breguet explained all in the manuscript I have found in the archives, how to make the best oil for watchmaking. It’s in a handwritten notebook from the early years of the 19th century.”

And here is Breguet’s “receipt” for, if not the perfect oil, the closest he could come with the materials and methods of his day.

Oil for watchmaking must be made from olives chosen one by one to be perfectly ripe. If they are too green or too ripe, they also tend to deteriorate. If the olives chosen are too green or too ripe, the oil contains an acid that causes oxidation and will eventually destroy the lubrication. Oil prepared for watchmaking must be kept for 18 months or two years before being used. It is after approximately this time that it takes on a character of stability that lasts 8 to 10 years. In addition, the oil must be kept corked in the dark and at a temperature below eight degrees on the Réaumur thermometer (The Réaumur thermometer, was the thermometer used before the Celsius thermometer; on the Réamur scale, 0 degrees is the freezing point, and 80 degrees the boiling point of water; 8º Réamur is about 10º Celcius)  because air, light, and heat by their isolated or simultaneous action, change a combination of elements in the oil, which is no longer suitable for the users for which it is intended.

The entire process of choosing olives at the exactly correct stage of ripeness, and the long aging process, is intended to not only prevent deterioration from oxidation, but also to allow the oil to stabilize chemically. Breguet’s statement that the oil would remain stable in storage for eight to ten years is remarkable and would have been a major technical advantage.

“It is a quotation,” says Emmanuel Breguet. “It is exactly what Breguet wrote in the notebook. It means oil was very important for him, and it’s linked [to the tourbillon] because the distribution of oil is better with the tourbillon. The natural escapement – please don’t ask me to explain it, only George Daniels was able to do that. The natural escapement was supposed to be without oil … but oil no matter what, is at the center of a watchmaker’s life.”

It is said that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and despite the absence of evidence confirming the legendary – and apparently apocryphal – statement that Breguet is supposed to have made about oil to the king of France, I don’t think there can be any doubt whatsoever that perhaps the single problem with which Breguet was most concerned was that of lubrication. Friction is, after all, not only one of the greatest, if not the greatest, challenges in watchmaking; it is one of the greatest challenges in any practical exploration of classical mechanics. After all, a pendulum swinging without friction in a perfect vacuum, is a pendulum that will swing forever.

There is no more a perfect vacuum than there is a perfect oil. But in his quest to overcome the inevitable problems posed by friction and lubrication, Breguet invented a bewilderingly diverse range of horological solutions. His most famous is the tourbillon but his work on escapements, as well as the general high precision of his work and of the methods of his workshops, all reflect the search for a certain kind of perfection.

The perfect oil, Breguet seems to have felt, would in fact be simply no oil at all, or no need for any oil and it is very likely Breguet would have been intensely interested in modern developments at the company that still has his name – in particular, the use of silicon, and innovations such as magnetic pivots. The famous quote may or may not have been said by Breguet; it’s likely we’ll never know. But it has remained famous for many decades because at its heart, it is an expression of a fascination with a problem that watchmakers are still challenged by today.