1776

The first sketches of the "chronograph" appeared in Geneva, when Swiss watchmaker Jean-Moïse Pouzait developed a watch capable of measuring seconds, with the ability to stop and restart the hand at will. Although the reset function did not yet exist, this invention laid the essential mechanical foundations for the future "chronograph".

1816

French watchmaker Louis Moinet achieved a technical feat with his so-called Compteur de tierce, a high-precision instrument designed for astronomical observations. Capable of measuring fractions of a second down to one sixtieth of a second (tierce), thanks to a balance beating at 216,000 vibrations per hour (30Hz), this device is now recognized as the first true "chronograph" in history, although it was not referred to as such.

Featuring start, stop and reset functions, the Compteur de tierce anticipated major watchmaking innovations by more than half a century, establishing L. Moinet as a pioneer of scientific timekeeping.

Nicolas-Mathieu Rieussec (1781–1866), born in Toulouse and watchmaker to the king since 1818, developed a revolutionary device: an instrument that records time on a rotating dial using an ink-coated point: this is the chronograph in the strict sense of the term (Chronograph comes from the Greek "chronos" (time) and "graphe" (to write)), and it was indeed the first time the term was used.

N-M. Rieussec unveiled his creation during a horse race held on September 1 at the Champ-de-Mars. But unlike the practices of the time, he did not simply measure the winner's time: he recorded the time of every competitor, an unprecedented approach that, without his invention, would have required a separate timing device for each horse. With a single instrument, N-M. Rieussec was able to simultaneously track all participants. This pioneering achievement in modern sports timekeeping was hailed as a technical feat. His work was presented to the Academy of Sciences, which officially approved the invention on March 9, 1822. Praised by his peers, N-M. Rieussec established himself as an international reference in time measurement and indelibly marked the term Chronograph in the watchmaking lexicon.

1822

One month before the official approval of N-M. Rieussec's invention, on February 9, 1822, Frédéric Louis Fatton obtained a patent in England for a watch described as an instrument allowing one to "accurately determine the time of day, the trajectory of celestial bodies, as well as the movement of vehicles, horses or other animals". F. L. Fatton worked for approximately 19 years with Abraham-Louis Breguet, particularly on the development of this innovative watch.

The main distinction between the two devices lies in their architecture: the Breguet/Fatton model uses a moving hand on a fixed dial, whereas the system devised by N-M. Rieussec relies on a fixed hand positioned above a uniformly rotating dial, corresponding to the N-M. Rieussec example preserved today.

The question of who deserves credit for the invention therefore remains open. However, it appears established that Nicolas-Mathieu Rieussec was indeed the first to use and officially establish the term chronograph.

F.L. Fatton would excel above all in miniaturizing the ink-based system.

1844

On October 14, Charles Victor Adolphe Nicole filed a patent under the authority of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, a decisive step in the company's industrial history. The patent, registered on April 12, 1845, describes several major innovations. In particular, it introduced for the first time a keyless winding system, applicable to watches with or without a fusee.

The second fundamental contribution of this patent concerns the addition of an independent seconds hand, capable of being stopped, restarted at will and instantly returned to a fixed starting point, thanks to a lever acting on a heart-shaped cam, a principle that foreshadowed the reset mechanism of modern chronographs.