He distinguished himself in the Franco-Prussian War, and was subsequently an editor of the Journal des Débats and the Revue des Deux Mondes.
[1] His early writings were devoted to classical antiquity, his knowledge drawn partly from visits to the actual Greek sites in 1868.
He published successively Histoire d’Apelles (1867), a study on Greek art; L'Armée dans la Grèce antique (1867); Histoire d’Alcibiade et de la République athénienne, depuis la mort de Périclès jusqu’à l’avènement des trente tyrans (1873; received from the French Academy the prize established by Thiers[1]); Papers on Le Nombre des citoyens d'Athènes au Vème siècle avant l’ère chrétienne (1882); La Loi agraire à Sparte (1884); Le premier siège de Paris, an 52 avant l’ère chrétienne (1876); and two volumes of miscellanies, Athènes, Rome, Paris, l'histoire et les mœurs (1879), and Aspasie, Cléopâtre, Théodora (6th ed.
[2] The military history of Napoleon I then attracted him.
He was elected a member of the Académie française in 1895.