Charles Nicolas Bazin descended from a long line of Mirecourt archetiers, so he was well-prepared to inherit the family workshop at the tender age of eighteen. Bazin expanded the business to provide bows to a variety of Paris workshops, including Joseph Hel and Collin-Mézin. Bazin’s early bows were based on the square-head Peccatte model that his father, François Xavier Bazin, had preferred, but by the 1860s, he shifted to the rounded Voirin model.
For more than forty years, Bazin produced high-quality bows, earning a reputation as one of Mirecourt’s best archetiers. In 1907, he retired and transferred the workshop to his son, Charles Louis Bazin.