The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-05-12
.F1Rsr CLOCK WITH BELLS.
One of Wonders of Fourteenth Centur
Clock of Chateau d. Anet.

N<A4tNeNNNNN
In primitive times a man was station
ed at the top Of the belfry to ring the
bells at the indicated hours, day and
night, writes Alfred Beillard in LHor-
logere. This Waterman was called the
horoscopus, that is to say, the observer
of the hour. He had recourse himself,
in order to fulfil his duty, to the study
of the astral system, to the number Of
prayers he was to recite to the quantity
of wax candle had consumed, to the
clepsydra, or water clock, and to the
hourglass. The trade of the horoscopus
was inevitably one of the first which
the progress of mechanism was to
cause to disappear.
The first clocks with bells known in
France date back to the fourteenth
century. Particular mention is made
of one which was established at Caen
in 1914, by Beaumont, and that Of the
Palais de Justice In Paris, which King
Charles V. had constructed in ITO by
the German clockmaker Henri de Vic.
This machine seemed so marvellous
that the inhabitants of Paris, so goes
the legend, asked permission of the
King to go on guard at the door of the
tower to assure themselves that it was
the clock and not the Waterman that
rang the hours.
This establishment of the people at a
period when mechanism was but just
born may we'll be conceived in presence
of a machine capable Of calculating and
striking the hours, without the as
sistance of any human being, with the
same precision that could be exercised
by the most vigilant horoscopus.
The custom was perpetuated until the
seventeenth century and still exists in
certain cities of Europe of placing
alongside of the clocks various autom-
otons which ring the hours. 1t is due
to nothing else than the thought of re-
calling to memory the thought of the
ancient Waterman. And also the
clocks with automotons catered to the
popular taste of that epoch. The peo-
pie of that period preoccupied them
selves but little with the more or less
exact measurement of time. Railroads
We're not in existence and the exigencies
Of life were not as great as they are
now A cock which crowed and tapped
his wings, some apostles who marched
by, striking a blow for each hour, filled
them with admiration and in this re-
spect no other clocks aroused so much
enthusiasm as those Of Lyons and
Strasburg. 1t was a clock Of this char
acter that Henri Deux placed over the
superb portal of the Chateau of Anet,
Nevertheless this timepiece was dis
tinguished from other clocks with au-
tomotons by the originality of the fig-
ures that it set in movement. Here no
longer was a woman or a man who
struck the hours with rusty arms, 1t
was a majestic stag, standing erect,
surrounded by four hloodhounds Of nat
ural size, which appeared to be holding
it at bay, that one saw on the summit
of the ortal. One of thestag's legs was
movable, and as it was lifted it seemed
to strike the hours. The four houndo
opened their jaws at each striking of
the quarters, and their voices were inn
itated by bells of different notes whose
clappers were connected by wires with
their long jaws, causing them to open
and shut as long as the bell ringing
mechanism continued.
This curious clock exists no longer
1t was sold at auction with its finest
dials for the sum Of sos francs when
the chateau of Anet was conf1sicated as
national property and sold with its fur
niture in Year Two of the First Re-
public
This ancient clock was replaced in
1856 by one entirely modern and made
by wagner. The stag and the hounds
in bronze were also carried away.
Those seen today are in bronzed terra
Gotta, and play no other part than to
recall to memory the ancient ones, and
to add to the decorative portion Of the
portal Of the chateau, whose architec-
ture, the work Of Philibert Delorme
is one of the purest and most delicate
constructions of the Renaissance.
Besides the functions that we have
enumerated the clock Of the chateau Of
Anet possessed, on the side Of the court
Of honor, magnificent dial, which in
dictated the position Of the signs Of the
zodiac, the months, the days of the
month and the moons age
On this dial, adorned with gold and
enamel, was engraved the following
curious couplet: Cur Diana. Oculis, La
bentes, Subject Horae? Ut Sapere Ad-
versis Moneat Felicibus Uti. n