The great metamorphosis which was effected so suddenly in the young clockmaker was very remarkable.  There is something very encouraging in his example, affording as it does a proof of the power of the man who arms himself with a determined purpose.  At first, the struggle with difficulties appears hard, painful, almost impossible; but only let there be a little perseverance, the obstacles vanish one after the other, the way is made plain:  instead of the thorns which seem to choke it, verdant laurels suddenly spring up, the reward of constant and unwearied labour.  Thus it was with our studious apprentice.  His ideas soon expand; his work acquires more precision; a new and a more extended horizon opens before him.  From a skilful workman, it is not long before he becomes an accomplished artist.  Yet a few years, and the name of Breguet is celebrated.

At the epoch of the first troubles of the Revolution of 1789, Breguet had already founded the establishment which has since produced so many master-pieces of mechanism.  The most honourable, the most flattering reputation was his.  One anecdote will serve to prove the high repute in which he was held, even out of France.  One day a watch, to the construction of which he had given his whole attention, happened to fall into the hands of Arnold, the celebrated English watchmaker.  He examined it with interest, and surveyed with admiration the simplicity of its mechanism, the perfection of the workmanship.  He could scarcely be persuaded that a specimen thus executed could be the work of French industry.  Yielding to the love of his art, he immediately set out for Paris, without any other object than simply to become acquainted with the French artist.  On arriving in Paris, he went immediately to see Breguet, and soon these two men were acquainted with each other.  They seem, indeed, to have formed a mutual friendship.  In order that Breguet might give Arnold the highest token of his esteem and affection, he requested him to take his son with him to be taught his profession, and this was acceded to.

The Revolution destroyed the first establishment of Breguet, and finally forced the great artist to seek an asylum on a foreign shore.  There generous assistance enabled him, with his son, to continue his ingenious experiments in his art.  At length, having returned to Paris after two years’ absence, he opened a new establishment, which continued to flourish till 1823, when France lost this man, the pride and boast of its industrial class.  Breguet was member of the Institute, was clockmaker to the navy, and member of the Bureau of Longitude.  He was indeed the most celebrated clockmaker of the age; he had brought to perfection every branch of his art.  Nothing could surpass the delicacy and ingenuity of his free escapement with a maintaining power.  To him we owe another escapement called ‘natural,’ in which there is no spring, and oil is not needed; but another, and still more perfect one, is the double escapement, where the precision of the contacts renders the use of oil equally unnecessary, and in which the waste of power in the pendulum is repaired at each vibration.