But how Swiss was Breguet? The watchmaker spent 60 of his 77 years in Paris, gaining French citizenship and, according to the exhibition catalogue, making an ?indelible imprint on the intellectual, scientific and cultural life of France?. Nevertheless, Breguet lived in Switzerland for two years during the French revolution from 1793-95, where he perfected some of his inventions. In the catalogue, Emmanuel Breguet, a family descendent who is curator of the Montres Breguet Collection museum in Paris, says that although his ancestor had the Swiss qualities of perseverance, organisation and seeking perfection, he cannot be given a single label. Breguet expanded his business to Britain, Turkey and Russia ?with original products and a network that in certain ways foreshadowed the ?globalisation of luxury? we are currently witnessing?, he writes. ?He was a man harmoniously combining Swiss and French qualities who found ? and therein perhaps lies his secret ? within his chosen profession, the measurement of time, a language that was not national, but universal.? Isobel Leybold-Johnson in Zurich, swissinfo.ch