[2] He resigned his commission and spent a few years in England, where he became a mechanic and acquired practical knowledge about machinery.

They were responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the dredging machines that finished the excavation from 1864 to 1869 after the use of corvee labor was disallowed by the Ottoman administrator of Egypt, Ismail.

The project was abandoned in May 1882, owing to British political and press campaigns asserting that a tunnel would compromise Britain's national defences.

He sat in the left of the Senate, but voted with the majority for the new military law and for the colonial policies.

Finally, Lavalley voted for the reestablishment of district elections (February 13, 1889), for a draft of the Lisbonne Law that would have restricted the freedom of the press, and against the procedure of the Senate against the general Georges Ernest Boulanger.