Paul Chevandier de Valdrome

His father, Jean Auguste Chevandier de Valdrome [fr], was a Master glassmaker who was also a politician; serving as a member of Parliament from 1821 to 1837, and the Chamber of Peers after that.^[1] His brother, Eugène Chevandier de Valdrôme, briefly served as Minister of the Interior under Napoleon III.

He studied art with Prosper Marilhat and François-Édouard Picot, but was especially influenced by the landscape painter, Louis-Nicolas Cabat, whom he accompanied on a trip to Italy from 1836 to 1837, following his first exhibit at the Salon. They became lifelong friends.^[2] He would continue to travel throughout his life; notably visiting Constantine, Algeria, in 1847.

His Paris studio was in Montmartre and became a meeting place for many notables, such as Félix Ziem, Prince Edmond de Polignac and Frédéric Chopin, who is said to have been inspired to write his Piano Sonata No. 2 during a visit there, when he saw a skeleton that Chevandier was using as a model.^[3]

In 1868, against the wishes of his family, he married Jeanne Émilie Lelarge (1845-1898), an actress who performed at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique and the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin under the stage name Jeanne (or Émilie) Defodon.^[4] Three years earlier, they had produced an illegitimate son, Paul Auguste Armand (1865-1914).

He was named a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor in 1869.^[5] During the Franco-Prussian War, he sent his family to safety, but remained behind and helped convert a hotel into a hospital for the wounded. After the war, they reunited and travelled to Switzerland for a vacation, then settled in Marseille.^[6]

Soon, however, Jeanne began a liaison with a certain "Baron" Marx Von Pforstein. This resulted in a judicial separation and Paul moved to the North Coast with Armand. After Paul's death Armand, still only twelve, was placed in the custody of the Dominican Fathers in Arcueil; under the supervision of his uncle Eugène. In 1878, Jeanne made an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Armand during a parental visit, creating a scandal that was covered widely in the press.^[7] Armand went on to become a diplomat. In 1914, he was murdered at the French Embassy in Tangier, by a cook who had been dismissed for alcoholism.^[8]

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