rh the Ac 



he Keyless Vtatch 



Carori ' s gift to Pompadour 

 ■was a tiny affair. "It is in a 

 ring^ he wrote, ''''only four 

 iignes [one-third inch] in 

 diameter, I have contrived 

 a circle around the dial \with 

 a little proj ecting hook. 

 Carrying thiswiththefinger 

 nail two-thirds around the 

 dial, rewinds the watch. It 

 runs for thirty hours"* * * 



l daci( 



WIST this hook around the dial,' ' murmured an au- 

 lacious courtier to Madame Pompadour in 1752, 

 'as you twist our empire 'round your finger!' 1 



"Watchmaker to Louis XV,' 1 this daring stripling styled 

 himself. The Keyless Watch, his shrewd gift to France's 

 fair dictator in the moonlit gardens of Versailles, proved 

 the key to power. Swiftly he rose: music master to the royal 

 sisters— secretary to Louis himself— from Caron, the watch- 

 maker's son to de Beaumarchais, the idol of France, whose 

 " Barber of 'Seville''' and iC Marriage of Figaro" hastened 

 the dawn of the Reign of Terror. 



To America, Caron's gifts were three-fold. His filibuster fleets bore 

 enormous cargoes of arms to the aid of our Revolutionists; his brilliant 

 dramas are cherished to this day by our opera lovers; and his Keyless 

 Watch, though too small to be entirely practicable, helped to blaze the 

 trail for those modern marvels of dainty compactness and precision— 



The $230 Corsican in white 

 gold, with dial of sterling 

 silver * * An unretouched 

 photograph ****** 



ies 





Press op Judd & Detweiler, Inc. 

 Washington, D. C. 



