One of the oldest timepieces in Paris dates to about 1529. At least that is the date inscribed on the bells of the clock inside the Church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, a church named for a medieval bishop that stands on the Place du Louvre, just east of the museum.
It is only one of the 250 city-owned clocks that have displayed the hours and minutes for hundreds of years. Someone has to make sure they keep ticking — and that is the job of the four horologists and one apprentice in the city’s clockmaking workshop, an office within the Public Buildings and Architecture Department.
“The workshop was created in 1921,” the workshop’s manager, Stéphane Bertonnier, wrote in an email. “Given that the city of Paris has many historic buildings, it is important to have a municipal team located close to and available to carry out this task: It is their responsibility to ensure the preservation of their predecessors’ legacy, to be passed on to future generations.”
Team members spend most of their time repairing, restoring and, if need be, rebuilding clocks in their atelier in the 10th Arrondissement, near the Place de la République. But they are out and about around the city every Monday, visiting the 40 buildings that house the city’s clocks.
“We make our rounds around Paris to wind weights or springs, make necessary adjustments and oil the mechanisms,” said Enzo Meschin, 29, who leads the team. “It’s ongoing maintenance.”
On one Monday in February, Mr. Meschin set out from the atelier to wind the clock at the Hôtel de Ville, the French Renaissance style building constructed in the late 1800s to replace the city administrative building destroyed by arson in 1871 during the Paris Commune uprising. The hôtel, in the Fourth Arrondissement, now houses government offices and ceremonial rooms.
“The clock in the Hôtel de Ville is my favorite,” he said. “It was presented at the 1889 Universal Exhibition, the same year as the Eiffel Tower.” The timepiece is embedded in the central tower of the building’s main facade, flanked by allegorical statues representing the River Seine, the City of Paris and other subjects.
“This clock was the masterpiece of the Henry-Lepaute family,” he said, referring to the clockmakers who created it in 1867 and donated it to the city, which installed it in 1882. “In its time, it represented the pinnacle of horology. It’s precise, and it’s also the most impressive: it’s nearly three meters [almost 10 feet] wide. Very aesthetically pleasing, it stands out for its remarkable craftsmanship.
“Recently, we had to remove the hands from the outside, using a platform lift, because the dial had to be replaced. It had been cracked by hailstones. We took the opportunity to dismantle the parts of the movement most prone to wear, clean them and oil them.”
Mr. Meschin entered the building and, after passing multiple security checks, took an elevator up four floors. He walked the long length of a quiet hallway, and unlocked a door at the end.
He entered a small room housing the clock’s mechanism, a complex combination of brass elements that the public never sees. Mr. Meschin began turning a heavy crank, as someone has to do every Monday and Friday, and the teeth of a dozen brass and steel gears of various sizes started to mesh as they turned. The process of winding the clock took about 10 minutes.
An Early Fascination
Mr. Meschin — who was born in Montargis, about 75 miles south of Paris — has been working with timepieces since childhood. “I became interested in clockmaking at the age of 12, thanks to the clockmaking museum in Lorris, near my home. There is a collaborative workshop where experienced clockmakers and amateurs work together to restore clocks of varying rarity, often donated by retired clockmakers.
“I initially worked on a clock belonging to my family,” he continued, “before moving on to clocks from the museum, taking apart old grandfather clocks.”
The experience drew him to the field. “I loved the atmosphere of a clockmaker’s workshop, the different techniques and skills that needed to be acquired,” Mr. Meschin said, noting that he started to collect all the timepieces and watchmaking tools he could find.
He initially completed a vocational training program, working first with a clockmaker near La Rochelle, in southwestern France, and then in a jewelry and watch shop in the Paris suburbs. In 2019, he earned a diploma from the watchmaking school at the Lycée Diderot in Paris.
After graduation, Mr. Meschin began working on the assembly line at Jaeger-LeCoultre in Switzerland, but disliked the job. Then, “a friend told me about this position, which seemed like a good fit for my skills,” he said.
He was hired by the city in August 2024: “I think I was selected because of my already solid experience in clockmaking, a skill that’s becoming increasingly rare.”
In the Atelier
Once the Hôtel de Ville’s clock was fully wound, Mr. Meschin headed to the Métro for the quick trip to the atelier, a half dozen rooms among other municipal offices in a nondescript building. Small and cluttered with tools and parts, the rooms are outfitted with workbenches for completing small repairs, frames made to hold parts of large clocks and some space to store future projects.
The adjacent workshop is used by two specialists in electromechanical clocks, the type that the city began installing in the 1920s.
Mr. Meschin’s four team members, who were having lunch in the building’s break room when he arrived, are Laurine Lottin, a graduate of the watchmaking program at Lycée Jean Jaurès in Rennes, France; Coralie Dusseaux and Jennifer Fraudeau, both graduates of the Lycée Diderot program; and Lou-Ann Hoffman, who is still working toward her degree at Diderot.
“A typical day begins at 7:45 a.m.,” Mr. Meschin said, noting that they often begin by discussing a repair. “We analyze the problems, malfunctions and parts that need replacing on a movement, then we use various techniques to ensure the clock functions for as long as possible and regains its original appearance, making sure our work is invisible.”
Such work, he said, involves a variety of methods, even when it comes to the clock’s exterior: “We remove rust and restore the full shine to brass, marble or gilt bronze.”
Because so many of the clocks are so old, he and his team often must make parts, as there are no ready replacements. “We often have to machine new pivots, remake wheel teeth, screws or even bridges,” he said. “We can do this using tools such as a bench grinder or a watchmaker’s lathe, but also by hand, with a file and a fretsaw.”
Recently Mr. Meschin’s personal project has been restoring the clock of the Church of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, a 17th-century church in the Fourth Arrondissement, said to be the city’s first Baroque style church. In February, the clock’s dial, with its distinctive Roman numerals, was held upright in one of the atelier’s wooden frames.
“The job was assigned to me by Stéphane, the workshop manager,” Mr. Meschin said. “I’ve been working on this clock, a disc clock, for a year now.”
“The Saint-Paul clock is one of the first to display the time differently, not with hands but with discs that rotate instantaneously,” he explained of the clock, which was installed in the mid 19th-century. “This is called a jumping hour and minute display, making it very easy to tell the time.” (He said that, to the team’s knowledge, the clock was the first to have such timekeeping.)
Mr. Meschin said the clock was the most complex he had worked on. “This clock, atypical and unique in the world, has led me to completely model its mechanism, propose modifications and remachine certain parts, such as the plate, which is the piece that supports the entire mechanism.”
“The clock was already restored by the workshop in 2011,” he continued, “but it didn’t function properly in all seasons due to its exposure to the elements. We replaced the wooden parts with metal ones to ensure its continued operation and make the adjustments more precise and permanent.”
In addition to the 250 clocks that the team maintains, there are 50 more that need significant repair, some stored in the atelier, some still in their original locations.
Asked when he and his team might be able to rebuild them, Mr. Meschin shook his head in dismay. He didn’t voice an opinion, but his answer was clear: Never.
He and his team are too busy. There simply are not enough hours in the day.
