Levassor was graduated from the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, Paris, in 1864. He was employed as an engineer at the Cockerill Works at Seriang, Belgium, and also with Durenne at Courbevoie, near Paris. In 1872 he entered the firm of Perrin & Panhard, the name of the concern being changed to Perrin, Panhard & Co. Upon the death of M. Perrin, he became the junior partner and the name of Panhard & Levassor was adopted. When Levassor died in 1897, the corporation of Panhard & Levassor was formed. [Illustration: LEVASSOR] Levassor made many improvements in the machinery and output of Panhard & Levassor. Especially he perfected machines for wood-working and made important changes in the processes used for the cold cutting of hard metals. On the first appearance of gas motors he undertook their construction in France. It was in the establishment of Panhard & Levassor that the first motors were constructed under the system of Otto and Langen with atmospheric pressure, then the four-cycle engine of Otto and finally the two-cycle system of Benz and Ravell. In 1886, when the Daimler petroleum motor appeared, he recognized the great part that it would play in practical application to the propulsion of vehicles and boats. He acquired the right to use it in France, and in 1887 exhibited, in Paris, a boat thus propelled. After several years he put forth the first automobile vehicle with motor in front. LEON SERPOLLET Serpollet is noted in France to-day as the champion of the steam automobile. In 1887, he appeared in Paris with his three-wheeler, two rear drive and one front steering wheel. With its light and safe generator his machine attracted much attention, but its use in the streets of the capital was temporarily prohibited, until the granting to him in 1891 of the first unrestricted license for such use resulted from his initiation of the prefect of police by driving that important personage in the steamer. His generator, known as the "flash boiler," has been developed to a high state of perfection. The tubes of his boiler were heavy, flattened tubing, strengthened in that form by being transversally bent or grooved. He was helped doubtless to no small extent, in his work, by his association, about 1897, with a wealthy American, F. L. Gardner, who made possible the development of the large Gardner-Serpollet establishment in the Rue Stendhal, Paris. While Serpollet has achieved a brilliant and well-deserved reputation in his native land, he is also recognized in other countries as one of the greatest living promoters of the steam branch of the automobile industry. His adherence to steam as the motive power in self-propelled road vehicles has been unremitting and energetic. Few men have done more than he to improve carriages in this class.