He lived in England from 1842, and was the husband of the writer and translator Clara de Chatelain.
De Chatelain was born in Paris in 1801, and was educated at the Collège des Ecossais and at the Lycée Charlemagne.
In the following year he went on foot from Paris to Rome, to study the sayings and doings of Pope Leo XII.
Between 1833 and 1838 he published many works in Paris, and was rewarded by receiving the Prussian Order of Civil Merit in 1835.
His best known book is Beautés de la Poésie Anglaise, in 5 volumes 1860–72, containing over one thousand translations of selections, from Geoffrey Chaucer to Alfred Lord Tennyson.