Sapphire Intaglio Ring

Comte Alexis Duparchy (1835-1907)

Comte Alexis Duparchy (1835-1907)

Jean Alexis Dauphin Duparchy was a French nobleman and entrepreneur with a highly successful career spanning some of the most important railroad and public infrastructure projects of the mid- to late 19th century.

Duparchy was born in 1835 in the Jura region in Eastern France to a family of landowners. He received a solid education and trained as an engineer in Paris. From 1862, he worked for the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord during the railroad boom of Napoleon III’s Second French Empire. In 1865, he joined the team of Ferdinand de Lesseps and spent four years working on the construction of the Suez Canal, arguably the most groundbreaking feat of engineering of the XIXth century. After the fall of the French Second Empire in 1870, Duparchy became one of the most important investors of his time, participating in railroad construction programmes in Ethiopia, Russia, Romania and Portugal where he worked together with Bartissol and Eiffel. The largest project he participated in was the building of Montevideo harbour in Uruguay starting in 1901. 

In 1882, he crowned his business successes by acquiring the Château de Savigny-sur-Orge. In fact, he received the château from the marquess of Alta-Viva in lieu of unpaid debts. For eighteen years Duparchy sat on the municipal council of the adjoining village of Savigny-sur-Orge and was a beloved figure of the community.