In 1850, the company received a new and important benefactor when Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte commissioned Christofle to produce a table service for the Palais de l'Elysée. Christofle's official titles of 'Goldsmith to the King' and the 'Emperor's Provider' provided the company with the foundation with which to achieve a new international expansion.
Founding a factory in Karlsruhe, Germany, the company began providing such foreign dignitaries as the Kaiser of Germany and the royal households of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Tsar of Russia.