His parents were Charles Auguste Loye, 25 years old at his birth, who was a tax inspector in Chatellerault, in Nièvre, Burgundy, and Léopoldine Gaveau.

Under the Second French Empire, he published a caricature of Victor Hugo and another of Sainte-Beuve in 1867 in Le Masque, a theatrical weekly.

His drawings also appeared in La Rue, a periodical published by his friend Jules Vallès, as well as in satirical publications such as Le Monde illustré (1880) and L'Eclipse.

His caricature of Léon Gambetta, also published in Vanity Fair on 19 October 1872, bears the caption: "He devoured France with activity."

Thus in 1889, he concludes in his book L' Ennemi "Delenda est Germania, si vult vivere Gallia", which may be translated "Germany must be destroyed for France to live."

This is why, albeit with some humour, Montbard writes of it in Among the Moors as "producing ... a deformed and lugubrious picture of men and things" and possibly constituting "a terrible engine of destruction, an explosive substance that was destined to pulverise the world of art".