A brilliant student at the lycées Henri IV and St Louis, he entered the École Normale, where he was strongly influenced by Joseph Gratry.

On his ordination in 1855, after a sojourn at Rome, he was appointed professor of history and prefect of religion at the "petit seminaire" of St. Lô which had just been confided to the Oratory.

In this connection his sermon (1879) on "the Church and light" caused a great sensation; after the Congress of Brussels (1894) he was named honorary president of the Society for the Encouragement of Higher Studies among the Clergy.

Elected to the Académie française in 1882 to replace Henri Auguste Barbier, in 1885 he welcomed Victor Duruy and in 1889 delivered the discourse on the prizes of virtue.

He attended the conclave of 1903[3] and energetically opposed the movement of exclusion directed against Rampolla by Puczina, Archbishop of Cracow, in the name of the Austrian Government.