Echappement naturel
Breguet realised that this problem (more serious at the time because of the rather poorer oils then available) could be removed and many of the advantages of the detent escapement retained if an impulse were given in both directions of the balance.
Approximately 75% of them survive and either exist in known collections or have passed through the main auction houses in recent years.
The first two watches share the features of both being small, having the rarer gold dials and apparently were planned to have new escapement at the outset.
They also show some of the improvements in design that led to the final use of the escapement in a series of tourbillon garde-temps made after 1808.
Breguet used this arrangement in many of his marine chronometers so that his best escapement makers could perform the delicate construction and adjustments more easily.
There was now a delay of several months during which the final work was done on the dial and hands before being delivered to the buyer M. Galakoff on 5 September 1805 for the price of 3360 Francs.
George Daniels[1] pointed out that this reduction of the size and inertia of the driven wheel resulted in improved escapement performance.
It then lay unused until Lapieur started construction of an échappement naturel in April 1805, completing it at the end of February 1806.
It was cased by Tavernier by 8 April 1806 and Sagedieu performed the repassage between the end of May and mid-September of that year.
The last entry in the workshop records is for 21 October 1806 when a minute hand was supplied but then it lay in the shop until consigned to its buyer Mr. Fenier of Moscow on 16 May 1808 for the price of 2640 Francs.
This considerable sum could have been for the removal of the échappement naturel and the construction of its current coaxial double-wheel Robin escapement.
At some stage the stop-work was replaced in a new sink in the barrel cap with a standard Geneva variety rather than Breguet's own design.
No more work was done on the watch and another year and a half passed before it was sold to General Labadie on 28 Mar 1810 for the price of 1800 Francs.
Breguet used Robin escapements in a number of carriage and chamber clocks, at least one marine chronometer and more than a dozen watches between 1807 and 1823, mostly between 1807 and 1815.
However, it was catalogued for a sale in 2002 of items from the Time Museum by Anthony Randall as having a double lift Robin escapement.
In the period 1808-1822 almost all watches using the échappement naturel were constructed on 4-minute tourbillon carriages, with 12+3 escape teeth, reversed fusees and sprung detent locking and were made to a similar pattern.
Judging by the rather modest mark-up of ~25% that Breguet applied to his workshop costs for other watches with this escapement, he might even have made a loss in this case.
Breguet sold the Bishop another tourbillon watch, number 2436, for the same price but this one had a constant force escapement.
The ability to sustain rough handling would have been more of an advantage for this but the potential for highly accurate timekeeping would appear to make this refinement redundant.
Breguet apparently did not find the échappement naturel fully satisfactory as a commercial escapement.
Despite its sharing with the chronometer escapement the lack of need to oil the impulse surfaces he found it deficient in some practical ways.
Indeed, Breguet bought back watch 1711 at the original price after a period of trying to satisfy the client.
