Godot fils (fl. 1815-1853), Quai de l'Horloge 63, Paris.

Godot père

Godot père is Charles François Godot, an optician born in Paris in 1757 and died on 28 December 1826. On 17 May 1794, he entered into matrimony with Victoire Claudine Pierrette Chevalier, daughter of optical instrument maker Louis-Vincent Chevalier. She was born in 1772 and died on 24 February 1821. The couple had 2 children, a son Charles Simeon Godot (Godot fils), born in Paris on 29 April 1796 and died there on 15 December 1868. Their daughter Victoire Louise Godot (1799-1860) was married to mathematical instrument maker Joseph Eli Bourjaunaux (1796-1865). The Almanach du Commerce de Paris 1827 lists both the father and the son; Godot père at Quai de l'Horloge 65 and Godot fils at Quai de l'Horloge 63.

Godot fils

Charles Simeon Godot's workshop, situated at Quai de l'Horloge 63 (at the Au Croissant sign) was visited by Ira and Charles Young in 1853 while procuring equipment for Dartmouth College. The label in the lid in the drawing set illustrated above indicates that Godot was a supplier to the École Royale Polytechnique in Paris. Around 1854, he was succeeded by the head of his workshop optician Alexis Eugène Barotte (03.11.1807-20.02.1860), who took up residence at Quai de i'Horloge 23.

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NOTES / REFERENCES  

[1] Annuaire de l'Ecole royale polytechnique, Volume 1; Volume 1833, p. 72.

[2] Marcelin, Franck; Dictionnaire des fabricants français d'instruments de mesure du XVe au XIXe siècle, 2004.

[3] Denis Beaudouin, Paolo Brenni & Anthony Turner; Dictionary of precision Instrument-makers and related craftsmen in France & Switzerland.

[4] Joseph Eli Bourjaunaux, optician and maker of mathematical instruments, not found in the standard references and not listed in the Paris Amanachs, except for the 1829 Repertoire de Commerce de Paris, and the 1832 Almanach et annuaire des batmens et de la Voire. He was active from 1828 to 1834 at Quai de i'Horloge 65 (the same address as his father-in-law who had passed away in 1826), trading under the sign of a la Boussole. He was born in 1796 in Limeil-Brévannes, Seine-et-Oise, died in a mental health institution on 25 August 1865 in Fains, Meuse. On 27 January 1818 he married Victoire Louise Godot, the daughter of optician Charles François Godot, and sister of instrument maker Charles Simeon Godot (Godot fils). As well as making mathematical instruments, he is known for his theatre binoculars, opera glasses, and barometers. He sold his instruments at fixed prices, a seemingly novel concept for the time, as stated on the label in a drawing set and in the advertisements (Gallica). He is not found mentioned after 1834, the year he presented his newly invented ellipsograph at the Paris industrial exhibition.