De Lavaleye was born in Bruges, and educated there and at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, a celebrated establishment in the hands of the Oratorians.

[4] He continued his studies at the Catholic University of Louvain and afterwards at Ghent, where he came under the influence of François Huet [nl] the philosopher and Christian Socialist.

In 1847, he published L'Histoire des rois francs, and in 1861 a French version of the Nibelungenlied, but though he never lost his interest in literature and history, his most important work was in the domain of economics.

[4] He was one of a group of young lawyers doctors and critics, all old pupils of Huet, who met once a week to discuss social and economic questions and thus was led to publish his views on these subjects.

He had the art of popularizing even the most technical subjects, owing to the clearness of his view and his firm grasp of the matter in hand.