His father was a wealthy merchant, and he received a liberal education at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen,[1] afterwards attending the military school at St Cyr.

His services were found to be of great value, and he obtained admirable training as a writer, and lead himself to investigate interesting events of British history.

His first work of importance (he had already written some historical abstracts) was the History of the Counter-Revolution in England, a political study of the events that culminated in the "Glorious Revolution".

His judgment was unusually clear, his principles solid and well founded, his sincerity and honesty beyond question; and to these qualities, he united an admirable style, lucid, precise and well-balanced.

[2] In July 1835, he was one of a number of newspaper editors and writers arrested in the aftermath of Giuseppe Marco Fieschi's attempted assassination of King Louis Philippe I.