A lawyer and general director of the Administration des Cultes in 1848, Eugène Durieu began to make daguerreotypes in the 1840s. In 1845 he assisted Baron Gros in making astronomical daguerreotypes. As a member of the Commission des Monuments Historiques, Durieu was instrumental in organizing the *mission héliographiques* that hired the photographers Edouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Gustave Le Gr
