Joseph Vallot (Henri Marie Joseph of his real name) is a French astronomer, geographer, naturalist, mountaineer and patron, born February 16, 1854 in Lodève and died April 11, 1925 in Nice. He left Lodève to join the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, studied botany and geology.

He was appointed vice-president of the Société Botanique de France and later president of the Club Alpin Français. In 1875 when he went to a geology congress held in Chamonix, he fell in love with Mont Blanc. At that time, despite the few scientific observations made by the Genevan naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, everything still remained to be discovered about life at altitude, the movement of glaciers, etc.