After spending some time in an educational institution in Metz, he entered, at the age of sixteen, the Jesuit College of Fribourg, Switzerland, attended the Gymnasium at Koblenz, and thence passed to the University of Bonn.
In 1848 he was elected a member of the Frankfurt Parliament, and attended, at Mainz, the first Congress of the German Catholics, at which he suggested the foundation of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Germany.
In 1861, upon the advice of his physicians, he sought relief in a southern climate; he died in Rome at the beginning of the following year and was buried at the Gesù.
His De Scholasticorum sententia, philosophiam esse theologiae ancillam, commentatio (Münster, 1856) treated of the subordinate position which philosophy should occupy in regard to theology.
It brought him into conflict with Professor Johannes von Kuhn of Tübingen, against whom he published, in defence of his position: Die Wahrheit in dem Streit über Philosophie und Theologie (Münster, 1860) and Ueber des Verhältniß der Philosophie zur Theologie (Mainz, 1860).