Gallonde, Louis Charles
Notice
Date de naissance
3 March 1715
Date de mort
post 1771
Lieu de naissance
La Fère
Couverture temporelle
mid-18th century
Couverture spatiale
Paris
Biographie
A clock-maker and mechanician, Gallonde in 1745 married Anne-Marie Cayla or Caillet, a cousin of the physicist J.-A. Nollet whose premises in the Galerie du Louvre he would occupy from 1767-1770 (1). Gallonde was trained by Nicolas Gourdain (1693-?), an innovative clock-maker, and by Alexis-Charles Caron (1698-1775), Horloger du Roi and the father of Pierre Augustin Caron (Beaumarchais), without that he served a formal apprenticeship. For ten years, from 1738, he functioned outside the guild structure as a 'free workman'. He became free in the Paris corporation of Clock-makers on 28 March 1748 following a special decree of 7 September 1737. This was probably a consequence of his having become well-known for his innovative talent and had acquired powerful patrons. His earliest known invention is a mechanical dice game (1738), passe-dix, of which one example is known (2). In the following years he submitted three inventions to the Académie des Sciences - a three dial clock with a reduced train of four wheels in 1740, a new form of anchor escapement with roller pallets in 1742, and a depthing tool in 1744.3 In 1742/3 he built the flat bed tower-clock presented by the Duc d'Orléans to the Convent of Ste Geneviève in 1743 (now in the Lycée Henri IV, Paris 5e arrondissement), and he would continue to produce such clocks (4). In 1745 he developed a gear-shaping machine (5), and a wheel-centring dial for use with a dividing engine by him has survived (6).
Gallonde worked for the leading connoisseurs of the mechanical arts of his day such as Bonnier de la Mosson and Pajot d'Ons-en-Bray. In 1754 he was paid 104 fl. 10s 8d for a machine he has supplied to Charles of Lorraine, governor of the Austrian Netherlands (7). Despite these special commissions however, perhaps because of them, he had financial difficulties. In 1755 he obtained a licence from Louis XV to hold a sale by lottery of some of his clocks,8 but despite this, in 1758, he was declared bankrupt. He managed nontheless to re-establish his business perhaps by extending his range to physics apparatus. An ornate dilatometer (pyrometer) on Nollet's pattern is known (9), a precision balance made for the chemist Rouelle is illustrated in the Encyclopédie, a thermometer has survived, as also a barometer with an ornate mount by the cabinet-maker Claude Joseph Desgodets (fl. 1740-76); (10) Gallonde enjoyed the honorific titles of Horloger et mécanicien du Roi and Horloger de Mgr le Dauphin. His work is characterised by a constant effort to reduce friction in his machines and so to lighten the force needed to drive them (11), principles which he applied in his 'observation clocks'. One of these has survived (12). It belonged to the Académie de la Marine at Brest, and is probably that used by Alexis-Marie Rochon (1741-1817) during his voyage to Reunion in 1767, and by Lieutenent du Denec in the same area in 1775 (13).
Gallonde worked for the leading connoisseurs of the mechanical arts of his day such as Bonnier de la Mosson and Pajot d'Ons-en-Bray. In 1754 he was paid 104 fl. 10s 8d for a machine he has supplied to Charles of Lorraine, governor of the Austrian Netherlands (7). Despite these special commissions however, perhaps because of them, he had financial difficulties. In 1755 he obtained a licence from Louis XV to hold a sale by lottery of some of his clocks,8 but despite this, in 1758, he was declared bankrupt. He managed nontheless to re-establish his business perhaps by extending his range to physics apparatus. An ornate dilatometer (pyrometer) on Nollet's pattern is known (9), a precision balance made for the chemist Rouelle is illustrated in the Encyclopédie, a thermometer has survived, as also a barometer with an ornate mount by the cabinet-maker Claude Joseph Desgodets (fl. 1740-76); (10) Gallonde enjoyed the honorific titles of Horloger et mécanicien du Roi and Horloger de Mgr le Dauphin. His work is characterised by a constant effort to reduce friction in his machines and so to lighten the force needed to drive them (11), principles which he applied in his 'observation clocks'. One of these has survived (12). It belonged to the Académie de la Marine at Brest, and is probably that used by Alexis-Marie Rochon (1741-1817) during his voyage to Reunion in 1767, and by Lieutenent du Denec in the same area in 1775 (13).
Notes biographiques
1. Anne-Marie Cayla (Caillet) is unambiguously described by Nollet as 'my cousin' marrtied to Gallonde in his will where he left her a small legacy. Quignon.
2. Now in the instrument collection of the Paris Observatory, INv 84 (old 18-4).
3. See bibliography below. Details of all three are summarised in Baillie 206, 212, and 223.
4. For example that made for the Town Hall of Niort in 1755.
5. Augarde 318
6. Crom 479.
7. Rasquin 85.
8. Havard ii col. 1317, following the Mercure de France.
9. Once in the collection of René Descamps, the instrument was sold by auction (Couturier, Nicolay, 3 December 1985). A pyrometer of this type by Gallonde was in the collection of Count Konrad Ernst Maximilian von Hochberg at Schloss Fürstenstein, Silesia. Lent by the Prince Hans Heinrich IX von Pless, Count of Homberg to the 1876 Special Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus in South Kensington, London (Catalogue 257 N° 1076 where it is erroneously described as 'Muschenbroek's pyrometer'),three or four copies of it were made of which at least two survive. De Clercq () 14. de Clercq * 18 & n. 16.
10 Museo Galileo, Florence. It is inscribed 'Thermomètre…' and therefore dates from c. 1770. Artcurial 16-17 June 2022, lot 10.
11. See the description of his four wheel clock of 1740. Several of the elements there decribed are employed in the astronomical regulator by him now in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris. See CNAM, Catalogue JB, 140-41, N° 13.
12. Chayette & Cheval - Turner, 21 December 2012 lot ….
13. Mascart 407-8, although his note concerning Gallonde is confused and inaccurate.
2. Now in the instrument collection of the Paris Observatory, INv 84 (old 18-4).
3. See bibliography below. Details of all three are summarised in Baillie 206, 212, and 223.
4. For example that made for the Town Hall of Niort in 1755.
5. Augarde 318
6. Crom 479.
7. Rasquin 85.
8. Havard ii col. 1317, following the Mercure de France.
9. Once in the collection of René Descamps, the instrument was sold by auction (Couturier, Nicolay, 3 December 1985). A pyrometer of this type by Gallonde was in the collection of Count Konrad Ernst Maximilian von Hochberg at Schloss Fürstenstein, Silesia. Lent by the Prince Hans Heinrich IX von Pless, Count of Homberg to the 1876 Special Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus in South Kensington, London (Catalogue 257 N° 1076 where it is erroneously described as 'Muschenbroek's pyrometer'),three or four copies of it were made of which at least two survive. De Clercq () 14. de Clercq * 18 & n. 16.
10 Museo Galileo, Florence. It is inscribed 'Thermomètre…' and therefore dates from c. 1770. Artcurial 16-17 June 2022, lot 10.
11. See the description of his four wheel clock of 1740. Several of the elements there decribed are employed in the astronomical regulator by him now in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris. See CNAM, Catalogue JB, 140-41, N° 13.
12. Chayette & Cheval - Turner, 21 December 2012 lot ….
13. Mascart 407-8, although his note concerning Gallonde is confused and inaccurate.
Bibliographie
'Pendule inventée par M. Gallonde', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1740,Paris 1742, 100 reprinted in Gallon vii, 79-83.
''Echappempent à ancre perfectionnée', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1742, Paris 1745, 165, reprinted in Gallon vii, 159-61.
'Compas d'engrenages', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1746, Paris 1751, 165, reprinted in Gallon vii, 315-19.
Description d'une pendule singulière et unique dans son espèce…, February 1758 (Broadsheet).
'Sur la supériorité de ses [Gallonde's] pendules d'observation', Bibliothèque Ste Geneviève, Ms 2336 f 28.
''Echappempent à ancre perfectionnée', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1742, Paris 1745, 165, reprinted in Gallon vii, 159-61.
'Compas d'engrenages', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1746, Paris 1751, 165, reprinted in Gallon vii, 315-19.
Description d'une pendule singulière et unique dans son espèce…, February 1758 (Broadsheet).
'Sur la supériorité de ses [Gallonde's] pendules d'observation', Bibliothèque Ste Geneviève, Ms 2336 f 28.
Identifiant
1716
ark:/18469/1sz2b