Vive interviews the brothers Albert & Henri Bouilhet in their opulent showroom on Paris' Rue Royale...

Vive: Can you tell us a little about the Christofle ancestry

Albert Bouilhet: My ancestors were two jewellers, Charles Christofle and Joseph

Bouilhet, and they were brothers-in-law. They, in turn, were lucky to have

met the Count of Ruolz, one of the real characters of the 19th centruy who

was extraordinarily multi-faceted. He was a chemist, a writer and a musician.

He came to see the two men and told them about a patent he held for a

process known as electroplating and the two men had enough intuition to

realise what he was bringing to them was a fantastic invention.