Hatin was educated at the college of his native city of Auxerre and then went to Paris where he found work as a proofreader, while engaging in various low-profile jobs in bookshops.

The first books he published, on subjects of history and geography, had only a limited success and would certainly not have been enough to make his name remembered.

His extensive work Histoire politique et littéraire de la presse en France was considered to have no equivalent abroad.

His Bibliographie de la presse is a valuable collection filled with unusual information.

Hatin also collaborated with the Dictionnaire des dates, the Histoire des villes de France, the Complément de l’Encyclopédie du XIXe, etc., and created the first political newspaper priced at five centimes la Seine and, in 1854, the périodical l’Union littéraire later renamed Bulletin des sociétés savantes.