It is a changed France that Abraham-Louis Breguet discovers when he returns to Paris after the French Revolution. He develops his foreign clientele and it is in Russia where he is the most successful. He opens an establishment in Saint Petersburg in 1808 which he is forced to close three years later when the Tsar Alexander I forbids the entry of French products on Russian ground, as a response to the politics of Napoleon.
The years following the Revolution see the dawn of a new clientele in France: bankers, officers but also the elite that held the power. In parallel, Abraham-Louis Breguet makes a name with the foreign clientele, English, Spanish or Russian in particular. Tsar Alexander I would visit the watchmaker in his workshop at Quai de l’Horloge. Caroline Murat, who became Queen of Naples in 1808, would own nearly thirty-four Breguet timepieces throughout her lifetime.
The reputation of Abraham-Louis Breguet is so important that famous writers pay tribute to him in their works. Stendhal writes in his publication « Rome, Naples and Florence » published in 1817: « Breguet makes a watch which for twenty years never goes wrong, while the pitiful machine by which we live runs amiss and produces pain at least once a week. ». He will be the first of an important set of writher to quote Breguet.
George Daniels says from Abraham-Louis Breguet that he built an international reputation without equivalence in the history of watchmaking. He distinguished himself with his prestigious inventions, whose many are still used nowadays, starting with the tourbillon and the wristwatch. This extraordinary career brought him several distinctions: Official Horologer to the French Royal Navy, Member of the Academy of Sciences or Knight of the Legion of Honor. He passes in 1823, at the age of 76 years.
While waiting to return to his adoptive country of France while exiled during the French Revolution, Abraham-Louis Breguet intensely worked on a large number of inventions. June 26th, 1801 will become a milestone for the House of Breguet as the watchmaker obtained a new certificate for a new regulator called « Tourbillon » which he receives for ten years. In 1810, he also creates the first wristwatch for the Queen of Naples and, one decade later, the chronometer with double observation seconds, the ancestor of the modern chronograph.
