In 1811, he entered the
École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied with
Charles Percier and . He won the
Prix de Rome in 1819, with his design for a memorial cemetery. While in Rome, he made a study of the
Basilica Ulpia, which was being excavated. Upon returning to Paris in 1826, he was engaged to build a parish church in
Vincennes, which kept him occupied until 1830. When the
Comte de Rambuteau became
Prefect of the
Département de la Seine in 1833, he reconsidered a plan to expand the Paris City Hall, proposed by
Étienne-Hippolyte Godde, which had been rejected by his predecessor, due to lack of funds. He eventually called on Godde and Lesueur to develop new plans. Their proposal was approved by the Ministry of the Interior in 1836, and construction began the following year. Work was halted by the
Revolution of 1848, but resumed after the proclamation of the
Second Republic. The final decorative work was done between 1854 and 1866. It was destroyed only a few years later, in 1871, during the
Commune. During this time, in 1842, the city of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye bought the seventeenth-century
Hôtel de la Rochefoucault, to make it the Town Hall. The project was designed by Lesueur and a local architect named Adam. Four years later, his manuscript ''Chronologie des rois d'Égypte'' (Chronology of the Kings of Egypt), received an award from the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and was printed by the French government. In 1848, after the Revolution, he was appointed to the
Académie des Beaux-Arts, where he took Seat #2 for architecture; succeeding
Antoine Vaudoyer (deceased). Following the death of
Abel Blouet, in 1852, he was named Professor of Theory at the École, and a member of the jury. He also served as an architectural curator for the City of Paris. At the request of , first President of the , Lesueur designed a new building for the
Geneva Music Conservatory. Construction began in 1856 and was completed in 1858. He was awarded the
Royal Gold Medal of the
Royal Institute of British Architects in 1861, and was made an Officer of the
Legion of Honor in 1870. During his later years, he published two works,
La basilique Ulpienne (Rome) Restauration exécutée en 1823 (1877), and ''Histoire et théorie de l'architecture'' (1879). ==References==