Adolphe Bazaine-Vasseur

Pierre-Dominique "Adolphe" Bazaine was born on 1st December 1809 at Versailles, France and died in 1893. He was a French railway engineer. He was a regional engineer with the highways department at Altkirch, subsequently becoming director of railways for Alsace

Career

Son of Pierre-Dominique Bazaine (1786-1838), also an engineer - (which can confuse) and of Mary Madeleine Josèphe (known as Mélanie) Vasseur. Adolphe was the elder brother of François Achille Bazaine, the Marshal of France. Adolphe entered l'Ecole Polytechnique in 1827, and then the school of the department of civil engineering.

He was appointed engineer of district of the department of civil engineering to Altkirch (High Rhine). Adolphe Bazaine was then given responsibility for the construction of the railway line from Mulhouse to Thann; then, with Mr. Chaperone, he established the project of the section Strasburg Bâle. He remained there, overseeing the railways of Alsace up to 1842. He was then given the project of building the canal of the Sauldre from the 1st January 1849, replacing Charles Augustus Machart, but in fact his activity principally consisted of prepare and carry out the liquidation of the Workshops. He finished Sauldre on 1st May 1849. Afterwards, he supervised different railway businesses in the North, the Bourbonnais (the line from Andrézieux to Le Coteau from 1855), and the Charentes (Company of the Charentes from 1862). He was made Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur in 1841 and promoted to Officer in 1861.

Bazaine was in communication with the utopian socialists Charles Fourier and Victor Considérant (his fellow student polytechnicien of the graduate class of 1826), who after the failure of the revolutionary attempt of the 13 June 1849, took refuge at his house while awaiting to be able to flee in Belgium.

Bazaine was the brother-in-law of the engineer and physicist Paul Émile Clapeyron, spouse of Mélanie Bazaine-Vasseur.

He married Georgina Elizabeth Hayter, daughter of the Victoria court painter Sir George Hayter and they had 3 children Achille (George), Adolphe and George (Albert)

Works

* "Études sur les voies communication: I. Chemins vicinaux"

Sources

* Maurice Baumont: Bazaine: Les secrets d'un Maréchal (1811–1888), Paris : Imprimerie Nationale, 1978.