In 1795 during the War of the First Coalition which brought about the fall of the Dutch Republic, France had annexed what was then termed the Southern Netherlands, now known as Belgium. During the period of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1802 Napoleon Bonaparte asked French industrialist Henri D'Artigues to leave the noted French crystal maker Saint-Louis to buy the dilapidated glassworks at Vonêche. Like Saint-Louis, Vonêche produced lead crystal glass, and within ten years had become the most important crystal producer in the French empire. Two of the key workers in the plant's success were chemist François Kemlin and engineer Auguste Lelièvre. In 1815 following Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the Southern Netherlands was re-united within the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands. As a result of newly imposed import duties, the Vonêche factory immediately lost most of its French market. In 1816, D'Artigues negotiated with King Louis XVIII of France to buy the Verrerie de St Anne glassworks in the town of Baccarat, and renamed it the Verrerie de Vonêche à Baccarat – a name it kept until 1843. The Belgian Revolution of 1830 meant that the Vonêche glassworks also lost most of its Southern Holland market, and hence closed soon afterwards.