13 September 1778

February 1848

Mantes la Jolie

Paris

1/2 19th century

A maker who called himself ‘l’Ingénieur-Chevallier’ to distinguish himself from Jacques-Louis Chevalier (qv) who also lived on the Quai d’Horloge (1). The son of a notary, who intended him for his own profession, Chevallier was aided by his grandfather, François Trochon, and one of his uncles in his desire to follow their profession of opticians. After training, with Trochon, and subsequently in the workshop of Lerebours, Chevallier succeeded his optician relations at the age of only eighteen on the Quai de l'Horloge. There, from 1795/96 onwards for some forty years, he made daily meteorological observations which he published in the newspapers (2). He had studied meteorology with Savinien Leblond, and he formed himself in the making of physics apparatus with Assier-Perricat. He held an appointment as supplier of optical and meteorological equipment to the King of Westphalia (Jérôme Bonaparte 1807-1814), (3) to whom the Conservateur de la Vue is dedicated. He supplied at least one floor-standing telescope to the physics cabinet of Luiz I of Portugal (4). Around 1800 he devised oxygen lighters and the following year made some improvements to the dial-barometer. In the autumn of 1801 he joined the Société des Inventions et Découvertes. A portable horizontal sun-dial in which an adjustable gnomon (similar to that used in a Butterfield dial) is appropriately placed on a printed paper scale mounted on a box which contains a magnetic compass with a cutaway sector so that the needle may be seen is described in various editions of the Conservateur de la Vue, but was developed earlier, in 1802 according to Chevallier himself. A surviving specimen is dated 1806. On it Chevallier is described as member of the Athénée des Arts. Between 1803 and 1806 he collaborated with Cadet-de-Vaux on a series of instruments for measuring the strength of liquids - the Gleuco-œnomètre (1804), the Galactomètre (1805) and the caféomètre in 1806, the same year as he published his ‘Franklin eye-glasses’, an early form of bi-focals. During the same period Chevallier carried out much development work on a decimal areometer and in the years between 1807 and 1817 a variety of instruments in optics, thermometry and areometry. In 1814 he presented an extract from the Conservateur de la Vue, 'De l'Usage des lunettes' to Louis Philippe then Duc d'Orléans in a specially commissioned paper-boards binding by Bradel.(5) By 1819 he held the post of 'Ingénieur des pages de la Chambre de S.M. et du Garde Meuble de la Couronne', was a member of the electoral college of the Seine department, of the 'Société Royale Académique des Sciences de Paris' and of the Athénée des Arts. An example of his hinged-lens monocular, opera-glass, instrument for which he obtained a patent in 1822, the 'Actinique' is known (6). He developed binoculars, devising a system for opening the two tubes while preserving their parallelism in the late 1830s (7). From 1838 onwards the business was directed by his son-in-law Ducray-Chevallier who subsequently succeeded him. He had five children with whom, in 1841, he conjointly offered for sale two houses, one at 14, rue des Prêtres Saint Paul, the other at 11, rue Augustin Thierry (8). As a freemason, Chevallier was 'Vénérable' of the lodge of the Admirers of the Universe by 1809 (9).
In the 1827 edition of Galignani's guide to Paris he is thus described:
' … Opticien au Roi et à la Famille Royale, inventeur du "gardien de vue, inventeur des lunettes d'opéra appelées cylindres et lunettes isocentriques pour lire, écrire et voir de loin, pour lesquelles des brevets lui ont été accordés. Inventeur aussi des cadrans solaires pour différentes latitudes, du baromètre mécanique, le saccharimètre et le Galamètre …' (10).

1. Advertisement in the Journal de Paris 9 February 1813.
2. Something of his work in this field , and his popularisation of it, can be seen in a four page text 'Météorologie' written in 1818 and sold at auction 2 April 2025 by Alde, Paris lot 249.
3 For a sector so signed see Tesseract 100, 11.
4 Now in the Museu de Ciencia, University of LIsbon.
5 Offered for sale by Chamonal September 2012, N° 45.
6. Tesseract 113, 2023, N° 1.
7. Perrot 100-101 although he spells Chevallier with only one 'l'. Ascribing his note to Chevallier is based on the address, but that Perrot has confused the various opticians is not impossible.
8. AN. MC/ET/CXXII/1992, 6 November 1841.
9. Notice partly based on the eulogy in Champagnac, 261-69.
10. Galignani, 1827.

Instructions sur l’usage des Cadrans solaires horizontaux et universels, Paris, 1806
Instructions sur l’usage des Cadrans solaires horizontaux et universels, avec une indication de la latititude des 230 principales villes d’Europe, une notice sur la déclinaison et l’inclinaison de la boussole, etc. New edition, Paris, 1807
Le Conservateur de la vue , suivi du Catalogue général et prix courant des instruments d’optique, de mathématiques et de physique, de la fabrique et du magasin de l’auteur 1st edition, Paris, 1810.
Ibid, 1st edition second issue, without the half title, and. with a page of errata at the end.
Le Conservateur de la vue , 2nd edition, Paris, 1813.
Le Conservateur de la vue , 3rd edition, Paris, 1815.'Instruction sur le baromètre', Journal d'Economie rurale et domestique, 1817
' Cadran horizontal, moyen de l'orienter', Journal d'Economie rurale et domestique, 1817
Essai sur l’art de l’ingénieur en instruments de physique expérimentale en verre, Paris pour l’auteur, Huzard, Delaunay, Pillet, 1819
Le Conservateur de la vue, suivi du Manuel de l’Ingénieur -opticien. 4th edition, Paris, 1820.
Catalogue d’instruments d’optique, de physique, de mathématiques et de minéralogie…, Paris 1842.
Catalogue et prix des instruments d’optique, de physique, de mathématiques, d’astronomie et de marine qui se trouvent et fabriquent dans les magasins et ateliers de …, n.d. [post 1819].

Quay de l 'Horloge A l'Observatoire (Trade card, Waddesdon Manor).

1809-19. Tour de l'Horloge du Palais, no 1, l'angle du quai, vis--vis le March aux Fleurs, maison attenant au Palais de Ju (Essai sur l'Art d'ingénieur, t/p.)

1809-13. quai et tour du Palais 1, (quai de l'Horloge) Paris (Almanach du Commerce; de Thury & Migneron 327).

1820-50. 15, place du Pont Neuf Paris Catalalogue (1842); Almanach du Commerce

1806 Paris, Industrie Nationale
1823, Paris, Industrie Nationale, mention honorable.
1827, Paris Industrie Nationale, bronze medal.
1834 Industrie Nationale, bronze medal.

1822: 'Lunette de spectacles qu'il appelle lunette actinique'.

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