Alphonse Lavallée

He also became a businessman in the region of Nantes, working for ten years with his brother-in-law who was a shipowner of the merchant vessel Bourgault Ducoudray.

He founded in 1829 the prominent École centrale des arts et manufactures in Paris, also known as the École Centrale Paris, with the help of three scientists: the chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas, the physicist Jean Claude Eugène Péclet and the mathematician Théodore Olivier.

[1] Lavallée provided most of the funds with his private capital to establish the school and became its first president (directeur).

The first location of the school was the Hôtel de Juigné building in the Marais district, which has now become the Musée Picasso.

His son, Pierre Alphonse Martin Lavallée (1836–1884), created an arboretum in the park of the Château de Segrez in Saint-Sulpice-de-Favières (Essonne), which was one of the biggest in Europe at the time.