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 army, an indissociable element of the regime, provided Breguet with a strong contingent of devoted clients, including imperial generals and marshals such as Michel Ney. All subjected their watches to rough treatment on the battlefield and described their campaigns in letters to Breguet. Whenever they returned to Paris on leave they made a ritual pilgrimage to Breguet, who duly expunged the traces of Austerlitz, Friedland, Wagram and other great battles from their timepieces.