During the Revolution, at 16 years of age, he and his family were imprisoned for seventeen months for singing royalist songs.

He was a civil servant, and he entered l' University where he published works of school literature.

He was elected member of the French Academy, as a replacement for Suard, on 8 August 1817 and received by the duke of Lévis on 30 November next.

He was a member of the Commission of the Dictionary where he fought the Lacretelle proposal, accepted Villemain and the count of Holy-Aulaire and voted against Victor Hugo.

Of his comic and lyric works, sometimes written in collaboration with Etienne de Jouy, his greatest success is a comedy in verse, in three acts: L'Avocat, played for the first time at the Comédie-Française.