This construction, with the winding weight oscillating on the border of the smaller back plate, unables to produce self winding watches much thinner, compared with those with the winding weight oscillating over the back plate. This watch was certainly constructed with a movement coming from the Jaquet Droz workshop, it can be compared with that of the watch signed Jaquet Droz & Leschot, No. 494 of the collection in the M.I.H. of La Chaux-de-Fonds (See Catherine Cardinal L' Horlogerie dans l'Histoire des Arts et des Sciences-Chefs-d'oeuvre du Musée International d'Horlogerie de la Chaux-de-Fonds-Editions Scriptar 1983, pages 56-57). Another watch, signed by Henry Maillardet, London, with an identical movement, was sold by Antiquorum in Hong Kong, on 18 June 1994, lot No. 171. MONGE, Gaspard Comte de Péluze. (1746-1818) was born in Beaune, the son of an itinerant merchant. Having made himself noticed by his teachers at Beaune, he was sent to teach physics in the Oratorian college at Lyon. Having made a survey of his native town during his free time, he was proposed by Vignau, Lt.-Colonel of military engineers, to the Ecole de Génie at Mézière where he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in 1772. He was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1780. Minister of the Marine 12 August 1792 he undertook the reorganisation of the arsenals of the fleet, and founded the Ecole Centrale des Travaux publiques, the future Ecole Polytéchnique. Professor at the Ecole Normale in 1794 and 1795, he allied himself with Bonaparte in 1796 while he was a member of the commission for the reception and conservation of the works of art looted from Italy. Elected from the Bouches-du-Rhône to the Conseil des Anciens, and by the Côte d'Or to the Council of Five Hundred in April 1798, he loft shortly afterwards for Egypt with the Emperor. With Berthollet he directed the scientific and archeological part of the expedition. He was President of the Institut d'Egypte, had maps made of the country and studied its monuments. The 22 August 1799 he embarked with Bonaparte in the Murion and arrived in France 9 October following. Monge was one of the first to become member of the Senate 3 Nivôse VIII (24 December 1799), member of the Legion d'Honneur 9 Vendémiaire an XII (2 October 1803) and Grand Officier 25 Prairial (13 June 1804), he was Director of the Ecole polytechnique from 1802. Member of the Institute he was named Count of Péluze in memory of his work on the Isthmus of Suez and was maintained in his duties at the return of Louis XVIII, but joined Napoleon during the hundred days which led to his being excluded from the Institut and the Ecole Polytechnique in July 1815. Monge is best known for his Géométrie descriptive (1799), but he was also the author of numerous other scientific works, communications to the Académie des Sciences, the journal of the Ecole Polytechnique, to the Dictionnaire de Physique and the Encyclopédie méthodique.