He studied successively at the college of Arras where he excelled in Latin, then at Lycée Louis-le-Grand where he earned his bachelor's degree.

In 1885, he began his career as professor of philosophy at Aurillac, where he met his future wife Louise Genty, whom he married three years later.

Palante separated from his first wife in 1890 and was appointed to teach at the Lycée de Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, then in the following years at Valenciennes, La Rochelle and Niort.

During this period, Palante lived a bohemian lifestyle, drinking heavily and notoriously marking his students' essays in a local brothel.

[2] A thoroughgoing Individualist, he admired Friedrich Nietzsche and showed early interest in the work of Sigmund Freud.

[3] His thinking is also critical towards the mass "herd instinct", which he thought oppresses and prevents individuals from developing fully.

In the economic field, he also objected to capitalists seeking profits to the detriment of the poor and called for a "politics of the belly".

Jean Grenier, who was Camus' philosophy teacher, met Palante and devoted a full chapter to him in his book Les Grèves (The Seashores).