Following the French Revolution, many of the laws and institutions associated with the monarchy were withdrawn or annulled, and in several cases, not immediately replaced. One such was the official hallmarking of objects made in precious metal, for the Assemblée Législative cancelled the law on the 1 st. of October 1791. Naturally, with no official controls, sub-standard silver and gold began to flood the market, with the result that the master goldsmiths, as members of the recognised guild introduced their own control mark -'Head of a Greek woman' with the letter 'P'- in 1793, as a self-policed guarantee for the quality of silver. As this single mark was applied to objects made in both 1 st.(958) and 2nd.(843) standard metal, the Guild decided the following year (1794) to replace it with a similar head, but bearing the number '1' for l st. quality and a 'Horse's head' mark for objects of 2nd. standard. At the same time, the 'Baby's head' was introduced as a guarantee for items made in gold. AII these 'temporary' marks were superceded by the act of 19 Brumaire an VI (9 November 1797) which re-introduced the official controls and duties on precious metals with new marks, the law coming into effect on 19th June 1798. With the reintroduction of official controls, it became necessary for any objects not already sold, to be resubmitted and stamped with the marks in force at the time of sale. Hence it is not unusual to find watch cases from the period bearing several apparently conflicting sets of marks. Nicolas-Constant Lemaire, born in Orchie ( North of France) in 1757, apprentice in Paris in 1772, first worked in Ferney and later in the Jaquet-Droz workshop. He settled in Paris circa 1792. He planed to establish in Paris, in cooperation with the government a manufacture of luxury watch and clock making: automaton clocks, singing bird boxes, ring watches, watches with equation of time and other complicated watches. He became with Glaezner Director of the Versailles factory in 1796. He died circa 1832.