He undertook paid studies to repay the financial contribution of his father, planning a railway station, a suspension bridge, a country house and others.

On the death of the architect Vaudoyer on 9 February 1872 he was made responsible for prosecution of the work, but only survived his master by two years.

In early 1859, the mayor Jean-François Honnorat asked the sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who had won a competition for a fountain in Bordeaux, to submit a plan for the main monument.

After thinking of calling on Pascal Coste, in August 1861 the mayor Jules-Joseph-Félix-Théodore Onfroy asked the young architect Henri Espérandieu undertake this major work.

On 30 December 1852, the Board of Directors, chaired by Bishop Eugène de Mazenod, approves the "Roman Byzantine" project presented by Vaudoyer's workshop.

The reason is probably that Vaudoyer feared concern about his pupil and collaborator due to his youth, his lack of reputation, but also and especially his Protestant religion.

Espérandieu died on 11 November 1874 at only 45 years of age from pneumonia contracted in the crypt of Notre-Dame de la Garde.

His mortal remains were transferred from his home at 59 rue Saint-Ferréol to the Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles for burial in the Protestant cemetery in Nîmes, where his childhood friend, Ernest Roussel, delivered the eulogy.

In the courtyard of the Palace of Arts a monument to his memory was erected, composed of his bust sculpted by André-Joseph Allar on a pedestal decorated with medallions representing his major works by Joseph Letz.