Grand officer of the Legion of Honour, Paul Valéry (1861-1950) was the professor of the Chair of Poetics at the Collège de France. He was a critic, essayist, poet and philosopher. His best known works are "L’idée fixe" and "Le cimetière marin". In 1925 he was elected to the Académie française and in 1935 he was appointed administrator of the Mediterranean University Centre of Nice.