Hippolyte Durand

[1] In 1846 Alexandre Dumas, enriched by the success of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, selected Durand as architect to build the home of his dreams, the Château de Monte-Cristo at Le Port-Marly, Yvelines.

[3] He resigned from his position with the diocese of Bayonne on 10 February 1852 after a dispute with the bishop, who accused him of bad temper and haughty and insolent manners.

[1] In 1853 the emperor Napoleon III gave Durand the job of building a summer home in Biarritz for the imperial family, the Villa Eugénie.

[4] Durand lived in Bayonne and Biarritz during this period, which created difficulties with the prefects of Hautes-Pyrénées and Gers, who considered him negligent of his duties.

[1] Durand was abruptly dismissed from the Villa Eugénie project in June 1855 and replaced by the twenty-seven-year-old architect Louis-Auguste Couvrechef.

[5] Durand built the church of Saint-André de Bayonne between 1853 and 1862 in collaboration with the Basque architect Hippolyte Guichenné.