Comtoise clock (Morbier clock)
A sturdy iron clock from the mountain villages of eastern France, famous for its huge stamped-brass pendulum and for striking every hour twice.
What is a Comtoise clock?
A Comtoise clock is a weight-driven pendulum clock made in the Franche-Comté region of the French Jura mountains. Collectors also call it a Morbier or Morez clock, after the two neighboring towns most closely tied to the trade. The Comtoise Clock Museum in Düsseldorf describes them as being built over roughly 200 years in this region, which matches the trade's long run from the late 1600s to the decline that set in around 1900.
Where the gilded clocks of Paris were made for the court and the wealthy, the Comtoise was a plain, tough clock for ordinary households. A NAWCC museum essay, drawing on the collector Seymour's book on Morbier clocks, calls it a clock of the people, in contrast to the costly French clocks of royalty and nobility. Some hung on the wall, while others stood in tall wooden floor cases.
See also: the wider family of weight-driven floor clocks on OnlineClock.app.
How the movement works
The movement is built almost entirely of iron and steel, with very little brass. Instead of the flat brass plates used in English clocks, the parts sit in an open iron or steel frame: corner supports hold vertical steel posts fitted with brass bushings, and the going train and the striking train each have their own section.
A falling weight powers each train, and a long pendulum regulates the timekeeping. The pendulum is often the showpiece of the whole clock: a thin sheet of brass punched or hammered into flowers, sheaves of wheat and other farm motifs, with a matching stamped surround framing the dial.
The striking is unusual. Most striking clocks have a warning phase that readies the strike a few minutes before the hour, but the typical Morbier movement leaves it out. Many examples also have a repeat or reminder strike: the hour is counted out again a minute or two later, so anyone who missed the first round can count the second.
A founding legend and the Mayet family
The usual origin story comes from Jean-Baptiste Reverchon, a former justice of the peace in Morez, who wrote it down in a manuscript of 1821. In his account, around 1660 the head of the Capuchin friars in Saint-Claude needed the wooden clock in his monastery repaired, and a man named Mayet from Morbier made an iron copy instead, then went on to build more with his brothers. A heritage survey by the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region treats this as a founding myth rather than documented fact, and says the real founder was more likely Claude Mayet, born in 1619, working with four of his sons rather than with brothers.
The oldest surviving Mayet-type clocks are large church clocks at Saint-Nizier in Lyon (1684) and at Orgelet (1685). Toward the end of the 1600s the family scaled the design down into the domestic Comtoise. Christiaan Huygens published his treatise on the pendulum clock in 1673, and the regional survey says the Mayets took up the pendulum soon afterward, though it gives no exact year; the change cut daily error from 10 to 15 minutes down to 10 to 15 seconds.
Local memory tells the story a little differently again. The church of Saint-Michel in Morbier, known as the clockmakers' church, honors Pierre-Claude Mayet (1675-1751), who with his brothers is credited there with creating the Comtoise clock. The two accounts may describe different generations of the same family, but the sources do not settle who deserves the title of inventor.
Cottage workshops and factories
Production spread from Morbier to nearby villages such as Bellefontaine, Foncine-le-Bas, Foncine-le-Haut and Fort-du-Plasne, as well as Morez itself. Between about 1780 and 1840 a system called etablissage took hold: independent workers made separate parts or carried out separate steps at home, and a merchant-assembler brought the pieces together into finished clocks.
According to the regional survey, output rose from about 4,000 movements a year at the end of the 18th century to more than 100,000 pieces by the middle of the 19th. Enamel dials were at first bought in from Switzerland; Swiss enamelers were then brought to Morez to train local apprentices, beginning with one named Huguenin in 1755. Factories followed, such as the one Louis Delphin Odobey founded in 1858.
Decline set in around 1900. Output fell to about 35,000 Comtoise clocks in 1901, and the survey points to a railway that reached Morez only in 1900 among the causes. The industry turned to other kinds of clocks, clockmaking in Morez itself ended between 1987 and 1990, and the Odo company, which moved to Morbier in 1990, closed in 2005.
How to recognize one
Look first at the pendulum and the area around the dial. A large, flat pendulum of thin punched or hammered brass, together with a matching brass surround framing the dial, points strongly to a Comtoise. The NAWCC essay notes that wall examples usually have the stamped flowers on the surround and pendulum painted in colors, while floor-case examples tend to show bare, richly stamped brass.
Inside, an open iron and steel frame rather than solid brass plates is the giveaway. Listen as well: if the clock strikes the hour and then strikes it again a minute or two later, you are very likely hearing a Morbier movement.
See also: getting an iron-framed French movement serviced on OnlineClock.app.
Questions people ask
Is a Morbier clock the same as a Comtoise clock?
Yes. Comtoise, Morbier and Morez are all names for the same type of clock from the Franche-Comté area of the French Jura. Morbier and Morez are two of the towns where it was made.
Why does my French clock strike the hour twice?
Many Comtoise movements have a repeat strike that sounds the hour again a minute or two after the first round, so a listener who missed the count can catch it the second time. It is a design feature, not a fault.
When were Comtoise clocks made?
The Mayet family of Morbier developed the design in the late 1600s, production peaked in the mid-1800s, and output fell sharply after 1900. Clockmaking in the area continued in other forms, with the last Morez activity ending around 1987-1990 and the Odo company in Morbier closing in 2005.