Poulenc, who had been familiar with various literary works since his teenage years, composed stage music particularly during World War II. Composing for the works of leading 20th-century French playwrights such as Jean Giraudoux and Jean Anouilh was an important source of income for Poulenc during the war, and a means to overcome the financial difficulties caused by his purchase of a castle in Noizay in the Loire region.

In the summer of 1940, Poulenc had the opportunity to have lunch with singer and actress Yvonne Printemps and actor Pierre Fresnay. The two actors, who served as directors of the Théâtre de la Michodière in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, commissioned Poulenc to compose incidental music for a play scheduled to be performed at the theater. The work was Léocadia by Jean Anouilh, a leading 20th-century French playwright. The play's protagonist, Prince Albert, meets an artist named Léocadia one day and falls in love, but she dies in an accident on the third night. The grief-stricken prince recreates the place where he met Léocadia inside the castle owned by his mother, the Duchess. Two years later, the Duchess finds a girl named Amanda who closely resembles Léocadia and asks her to pretend to be Léocadia for three days inside the castle. As the prince spends time with Amanda, he comes to accept the death of Léocadia, a memory from the past, and falls in love with Amanda, who is alive before him—such is the story. The performance at the Théâtre de la Michodière was the world premiere, with Fresnay playing Prince Albert and Printemps playing Amanda. Poulenc readily accepted their request, and the work achieved great success, with 173 performances from its premiere on November 30th until April 1941. Les Chemins de l'amour played a part in that success.

Similar to much incidental music, Léocadia was not scored to be performed throughout the entire play, but rather in a style where music was provided in the necessary form at specific points. Poulenc composed a total of eight pieces, including preludes to each act. Among these, the song sung by Amanda, played by Printemps, in Act 3 is Valse des Chemins de l'amour. This piece, which sings of the memories of a past love, quickly became a topic of conversation among theatergoers and was independently recorded and published as Les Chemins de l'amour. Since then, it has been cherished by many singers across all genres and performed on various instruments to this day.

For reasons related to its genesis, neither Carl B. Schmidt, who compiled Poulenc's complete works catalog, nor Hervé Lacombe, who wrote Poulenc's biography, assigned an independent catalog number (FP number) to Les Chemins de l'amour, instead listing it as one piece within Léocadia, FP 106.