He attended the Collège des Bons-Enfants, where he showed a talent for drawing at an early age.

Laugée enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Saint-Quentin, founded by the pastel artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour.

[2] Laugée's father wanted him to become a mechanic, but his teacher insisted that would waste a great talent.

His family ran into financial difficulty and he considered leaving the school, but Picot gave him the support needed to complete his studies.

As his artistic career evolved, Laugée became increasingly interested in landscapes and peasant genre subjects.

At the Société des Artistes Français he was made hors concours, meaning that his work did not have to be reviewed by a jury.

[1] Laugée was one of the artists commissioned to decorate the interior of the dome of the Bourse de commerce in 1888–89 with paintings that represented the four compass points and the five continents.

[2] Eugene Montrosier wrote of Laugée in 1884 that he was, ...a varied, original, prolific, and often very powerful painter.

He knows how to infuse sentiment and thought into his religious scenes; he even impregnates them with an accent of faith which enhances them with a touch of passion.

The characters who camp outdoors under the bite of the summer sun are too delicate, too elegant, they lack the native harshness that the furrow communicates to those who dig it, that the field loaded with ears of wheat gives to those who reap it.