Entering the magistracy, he became attorney-general for the district of Besançon in 1830, but having received holy orders at Strasburg, under the episcopate of Jean François Marie Lepappe de Trevern, he was made professor of sacred eloquence in the school of higher studies founded at Besançon by Cardinal de Rohan.

The cardinal showed himself a warm advocate of the temporal power of the popes, and firmly protested against the withdrawal of the French army from the Pontifical States.

[2] In 1870, he went to Versailles, the headquarters of the German armies, to entreat Wilhelm I of Prussia to reduce the war contribution imposed on the city of Rouen.

Under the republican government he uniformly opposed the laws and measures passed against religious congregations and their schools, but endeavored to inspire his clergy to deference and conciliation in their relations with the civil authorities.

[2] His best known work is "Introduction a la philosophie du Christianisme" (1835), two octavo volumes.