DISRAELI DOCUMENTS
Like French patent # 888,564, this fabulous patent is issued to ‘Madame Veuve Jeanmot, née Germaine Fasquel’ which might translate roughly as ‘The Widow Jeanmot, maiden name Germaine Fasquel’. I am not sure if this description is used to imply that Germaine Jeanmot’s late husband, Charles, was the real inventor, or whether widows were routinely referred to in this way. I rather hope that this sophisticated and elegant design is the work of Germaine herself. There is a distinct and regrettable lack of female derailleur designers.
Unlike French patent # 888,564, this patent is granted by the ‘République Français’ (French Republic), as, by 1946, the pesky Germans had been sent back home again and ‘Vichy’ was a brand of mineral water once more.
The derailleur design itself has a very modern parallelogram action, with twin pulleys in a touring-style cage. Brilliant!
