“THE WORLD moves on, malenkaya, and we must move on with it, or be left to molder with the past. I am the past; I like it. It’s sweet and familiar.” This was a line delivered by Helen Hayes in the 1956 film Anastasia, where she played the penultimate Empress of Russia, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.

The Russian Imperial court before the revolution glittered above all during the last few decades before the First World War. It definitely outshone the mournful court of Imperial Austria, the serious Imperial court of Prussia, and the doughty middle-class model epitomized by Britain’s Queen Victoria. Part of the glitter of the Russian court was its fondness for the good life, their bodies decorated with pieces by jewelers like Faberge, and even watchmakers like Breguet.

Emmanuel Breguet, a seventh-generation member of the watchmaking Breguet family, swung into town in the final days of October to promote the newest edition of his 1997 book, Breguet, Watchmakers since 1775. The life and legacy of Abraham-Louis Breguet. In the book, he explores the vast archives of the house of his ancestors (now owned by the Swatch group) and tries to weave a common thread through the periods and political upheavals that shook the world, which one his ancestor navigated with relative ease.

The book was first published in 1997, and was a hit among watch enthusiasts, and quickly sold out before going out of print. This updated edition features new images, illustrations, and additional pages on the historic pieces acquired by the Breguet Museum since 2000.

The French royal court served as a perfect breeding ground for Abraham-Louis Breguet, watchmaker, inventor, jeweler, and artiste. According to the younger Mr. Breguet, the original Monsieur Breguet was the first watchmaker in his family, after he was apprenticed to his stepfather, Joseph Tattet, some years after the premature death of his own father. Young Breguet’s expertise reached Paris, where the fashionable young queen Marie Antoinette, fascinated by all things new, placed several orders with the horologist, culminating in an order for a watch that included all the features and advances possible for the day, such as a minute-repeater and a thermometer. The order was supposed to have been placed by the Swedish count Axel von Fersen, an alleged lover of the queen. The queen never saw the watch as the French Revolution swept her off the throne and off this world before it was finished.

M. Breguet led a life perhaps as colorful as his customers. While serving the French Royal court – according to his descendant’s book – he struck up a friendship with one of the revolutionary leaders of the time, Jean-Paul Marat. The pair apparently helped each other escape the fires of the ever-changing revolution.

Eventually the Bonaparte dynasty, in the body of Napoleon I, took over the vacant reigns of the French throne, and went on to copy the styles of the people he replaced, and began to place orders as well with M. Breguet. Napoleon Bonaparte’s family, placed on various thrones of Europe, also bought several magnificent pieces from Breguet. Napoleon’s throne would be shaky however, as incensed deposed royals all over Europe came together to topple him from his seat at the top. Breguet also came to profit from these royal houses, counting among his customers the courts of Prussia and Russia, a relationship that extended until their own falls in the 1900s.

The Breguet company, as we have said, has changed hands over the years. In the 1800s, it had been sold to another family, and in the 1990s, it was acquired by the Swatch group.

“It’s a litle bit of a strange story,” said Mr. Breguet told BusinessWorld, when asked how it feels like to work for a company that bears his name, but is not his. “My parents didn’t speak a lot about the family,” he recalled, and he only knew of the liminal role his ancestors played in history while studying at the Sorbonne. He now works for the company as a “historian and in charge of the patrimony.”

Asked about the business dealings of his ancestor, the modern day Mr. Breguet said: “His target was to create; not to become rich.”

His ancestor, interestingly, also counted among his clients Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, who also switched allegiances several times in the course of the late 1700s and the early 1800s. Letting Mr. Breguet’s ancestor summarize his own actions in the book, he is quoted as saying: “You see, sales are not the only reward for your journey; you can also acquire new and useful knowledge.”

The second edition of Breguet, Watchmakers since 1775. The life and legacy of Abraham-Louis Breguet is available in all Breguet boutiques worldwide. The 2.6 kilo, 26.5 x 27.5 cm (hardcover 27 x 29 cm) book contains 452 pages, with 512 illustrations. – Joseph L. Garcia

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