Henri-Eugène-Adrien Farcot (20 February 1830 in Sainville – 14 March 1896 in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés) was a French clockmaker, industrialist, inventor, mechanical engineer, aeronaut, writer, and one of the most celebrated makers of conical pendulum clocks.

Files for each patent, including a description and drawings, can be consulted in the archives of the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI): A class of its own among the conical pendulum clocks are the monumental timepieces commercialized between 1862 and 1878.

[4] In his own words, Eugène Farcot explained the origins of his idea during the 1867 Paris universal exposition (translated from the French): Huygens suspended his conical pendulum from the rod itself, which gave it its rotation; an arrangement which has been advantageously employed as a regulator of steam machines, but which it is not possible to introduce in horology where, the latter has no more than a little force.

[9] Review 3 (translated from the French): In the middle of the Palais du Champ-de-Mars vestibule of honor, beneath the grand central dome, a monumental clock, work of the skilled mechanical-horologist Mr. Eugène Farcot, attracts keen admiration.

This is a real monument, over 7 meters high, composed of a plinth ornamented with bas-reliefs representing the attributes of arts and industry, at each of whose four corners stand two-meter-high bronze caryatids supporting a pedimented turret.

As a pendulum, a 1 m. 25 diameter metallic ball, weighing around 100 kilograms, representing the earth, with its continents and islands emerging in gilt relief against a blue sea background.

This globe, encircled by a gilt ring bearing, also in relief, the signs of the zodiac, is suspended from the center of the dome, 2 meters above the clock, connected to its invisible movement by a needle.

The clock "runs by itself"; the spontaneous undulations of this enormous pendulum obey natural laws too well known to require explanation; however some visitors seemed very intrigued and very curious to know where was the "little beast" that moves the entire device.

[10]While Farcot experienced with a light engine built for him for aerostats, caught his right thumb in the gears and had to be amputated,[11] expressing later when the Franco-Prussian War (translated from the French): I could not properly handle a rifle.

His fame, the honorable place he occupied in our industry, the interest he showed in questions regarding our profession, made him soon to be appointed as a member of the 1st Board of our Chamber, where he sat for many years.

Those who, like me, were colleagues at that time, have still present in mind the memory of his cordiality, of his fair and clairvoyant spirit; I can say that his assistance was valuable for the debuts of our nascent Chamber rendering it real services.

Devoted patriot, he did not hesitate during the fatal and painful epoch of 1870, to make his services available at the Government of the Republic; he risked his life with abnegation to carry the provinces news from Paris besieged.

If he has left us too early, if today we mourn on the edge of this opened tomb, he will have the consolation, in this supreme moment, of being surrounded by the affection of his own ones, of a devoted wife, worthy companion of his life’s work, of a son-in-law cruelly tested himself, who was as a son to him and that he will not fail neither to honor his memory nor continuing his remembrance.