Francophilia

Your local horologist has been lucky to enjoy a few trips to France over the years. 

Nothing like a good bistro on a blustery day.

When not in the shop this clock fool enjoys a good French film. Jacques Tati was brilliant, Melville was a genius and Clouzot made one of the greatest films of all time.

And the French made incredible clocks. YLH owns more than a couple and has had the chance to write about this one, and this one, and this one. Oh and this one! And he hasn't even gotten to this one. There are others.

French clockmaker's persistent dedication to and long tradition of quality, design and artistry, even in the face of tremendous economic challenge, surpasses the horological efforts of perhaps any other country. 

French clocks were often made for the aristocracy and frequently designed with statuary and elements resplendent in gold. Here is an example of a classic French mantel clock in the Louvre:

Photo courtesy of Pierre Philippe Thomire - Marie-Lan Nguyen (2006), Public Domain

This clock collector owns nothing quite like that but up to date readers will know that he has recently been plumbing the mysteries of an incredible Morbier (AKA Comtoise) clock recently acquired.

Morbier clocks are less well known than what are classically identified as French clocks. Certainly they were much less popular in the circles of the upper crust and relatively few made their way across the pond. While still quite beautiful they are much more rustic in their construction and design, and were considered to be clocks that everyone could afford. 

Many of the scenes depicted on the repoussees (and sometimes the pendulums) were elements of rural, 19th century French domestic life, like the farmer and the butcher at the head of our Morbier as shown at the top of this post. 

There is so much wonderful history and horological detail with these clocks but to truly understand most of it requires one to be a native French speaker/reader. YLH studied French for eight years in school but has very little regular opportunity to use it.

< And now a slightly lengthy aside >

While there are quite a number of bits and bobs published on the interwebs about Morbier clocks there are but a handful of books written about them that have been published in or translated to English. And there is almost nothing published about their repair. In English.

There are many books and sources of Morbier clock information in French. There are a surprisingly large number of wonderful videos on YouTube. In French. Here is a particularly delightful short film about a 94 year old Swiss clockmaker who has been servicing Morbiers his entire life. With subtitles in... French. 

<< Aside within an aside >>

While the above short is a pleasure to watch as is there is a way to set YouTube to do an auto translation of the French subtitles to English. Results may vary.

<< End of aside within an aside >>

Spending some time on the NAWCC boards searching for Morbier information it became apparent that there were only four substantive articles on these clocks published by the NAWCC and they were all authored in the 1970s. An NAWCC library archives search was fruitful but the quality of the article scans is rather poor.

However with more digging it became clear that in 2005 the author of all four, Lawrence Seymour, republished the articles together in a much higher quality, book form. 

This book.

Quickly ordered.

There is one, 450 page French tome that may be the most authoritative books on the history and design of Morbier / Comtoise clocks. Originally published in 1930 and then updated in in 1976 -- there was a single printing in 1991 of an English translated edition and the few used copies that can be found online run about $300 a pop or (sometimes considerably) more.

It is apparently the only major monograph on Morbiers in English, and was translated by... Seymour.

He is the Morbier man. 

So virtually everything that YLH is sharing regarding the history and design of these clocks is derived from the work of Mr. Seymour and rather than endlessly refer to his writings YLH will simply say that general Morbier information shared here comes from Seymour unless otherwise noted.

< End of slightly lengthy aside >

Our Morbier arrived very well packed. The two 9 pound weights were shipped separately. One arrived with a dented loop end which friend Scott helped remedy.

The clock was listed as "working" and to see if the rumors were true, once out of the box, up it went on the tall case stand.

This stand is an important tool in YLH's horological arsenal.

A tall case stand is built to safely hold and allow work on a weighted clock movement up high (like it might be suspended in a case), with a feature that allows the weights to descend (sometimes for a full weeks running at a time during testing). 

This stand has a special feature -- panels/slats on its top that can adjust to widths needed to accommodate various layouts of weight cords and pendulums. It was custom built for YLH by the aforementioned friend and proprietor of Johnson Arts. Scott came up with the adjustable slat idea himself. A great feature.

Here is the stand in use showing a pendulum dropping through the gap in the adjustable slats.

Yes our Morbier runs on weights attached to cords that are wound around and unspool from two barrels. One barrel for the time train and one for the striking train (the trains are the sets of wheels used to drive a specific function of the clock). The weight cords drop through slots at the base of the metal box/case that surrounds the movement. The cord drop shifts from the front to the back as it unwinds from the barrel. The span of that shift is matched by the length of the slots in the base of the case.

The hooks of the cords were zip-tied together for shipping.

Below we have the open movement (without the repoussee and dial) sitting up on the stand. The weights and the elaborate pendulum are attached and hang below. You can see how the weight cords and the pendulum drop through the gap in the stand -- adjusted to its needed size by those slats (and it accommodates the pendulum drop too!)

That stand is incredibly useful.

OK YLH did jump ahead a bit in service of explaining how the stand works. Now let's see our beauty as she was first set up on this stand.

Here she is, all 61 inches of her.

Yes that is a butcher in his shop at the bottom of the pendulum.

Mrs. YLH comes from a family who ran various food businesses including a butcher shop. 

This clock was a must have.

Thankfully it ticked away happily after putting it up on the stand literally right out of the box.

But there was much more to come in getting it to run well.

Next time!