Louis Chevalier (historian)
Louis Chevalier (29 May 1911, L'Aiguillon-sur-Mer, Vendée – 3 August 2001) was a French historian with interests in geography, demography and sociology. Much of his work was devoted to the history of French culture and Paris. Early life and education. Louis Chevalier was born in L'Aiguillon-sur-Mer in the coastal department of Vendée in western France. He was educated mainly in Paris and attended the lycée Henri IV, where he was a pupil of the famous teacher of philosophy known as Alain and also of the historian Charles-Hippolyte Pouthas. Chevalier entered the Ecole Normale  Supérieure (ENS) in 1932, where a fellow student and close friend was the future president Georges Pompidou. He passed his agrégation in 1938 and entered an academic career. During World War II, he served as a tutor at the ENS and taught his history first course at the Ecole libre des sciences politiques in Paris. In 1946 the latter school became the elite Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (more frequently known as "Sciences Po") and Chevalier was appointed to a professorship. Six years later he was elected to a chair in Parisian history at the Collège de France. Among his  students at Sciences Po was the future French prime minister Edouard Balladur. Career. Chevalier's most important works are "Classes Laborieuses et Classes Dangereuses à Paris au XIX Siècle", published in 1958, a survey of the Parisian working class that challenged many assumptions of political historians about their work regimes and political activities and "L'Assassinat de Paris", published in 1977. Chevalier was awarded France's highest honor, the "Legion d'honneur", in 1958; his initial decoration as a knight was upgraded to "officier" in 1967, and ultimately "commandeur" in 1977. In 1987, he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Académie  des Sciences Morales et Politiques.