Читать книгу Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks онлайн

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We are somewhat anticipating the full consideration of this subject; but it is desirable at once to explain how and why an improvement on the warded lock was sought for.

In connexion with the fanciful eighteenth-century locks, lately adverted to, we may remark, that no less a man than Louis XVI. was an amateur workman in this department of mechanical art—or at least in smith’s work, which in France is generally considered to include lock-making. Sir Archibald Alison says, in his History of Europe:—“He had an extraordinary fondness for athletic occupation and mechanical labour; insomuch that he frequently worked several hours a-day with a blacksmith of the name of Gamin, who taught him the art of wielding the hammer and managing the forge. He took the greatest interest in this occupation, and loaded his preceptor in the art with kindness; who returned it by betraying to the Convention a secret iron recess which they had together worked out in the walls of the cabinet in the Tuileries, wherein to deposit his secret papers during the storms of the Revolution.” There are not wanting indications that the unfortunate monarch wrought upon locks, as well as upon safes and strong-rooms.