Montfaucon was born on 13 January 1655 in the Castle of Soulatgé, a small village in the Corbières Massif, then in the ancient Province of Languedoc, now in the modern Department of Aude.

He was a captain of grenadiers and made two campaigns under the command of Marshall Turenne, participated in the Battle of Herbsthausen and fell ill in Saverne in Alsace.

Because of his infectious illness he made a vow to Our Lady of Marceille to give one hundred livres to her sanctuary in Limoux and to become a monk, if he was able to return to his country as a result of her intervention.

After the death of Montfaucon's father at the Château de Roquetaillade, in 1675 he entered the novitiate of the Benedictine monastery of Bream in Toulouse.

[6] The book dealt so comprehensively with the handwriting and other characteristics of Greek manuscripts that it remained the leading authority on the subject for almost two centuries.

Montfaucon was the original editor of the homilies Adversus Judaeos by saint John Chrysostom along with many other works of the Fathers of the Church.

Lancelot, unsure of what medium the drawings depicted, suggested that they might be a tomb relief, stained glass, a fresco, or even a tapestry.

In anticipation of volume 2 of Les Monumens, Montfaucon engaged the artist Antoine Benoit, and sent him to Bayeux to copy the Tapestry in its entirety and in a manner more faithful to its style.

Emory University art history professor Elizabeth Carson Pastan criticizes Montfaucon for his "Norman Triumphalist" point of view in dealing with the story of the Tapestry, despite the fact that he asserted that one should trust "the best historians of Normandy".