After studying law, Jean-Louis Laforest Dubut became an advocate and editor of the newspaper L'Avenir de la Dordogne.

Dubut de Laforest was a member of Le Chat Noir and of the theatrical and artistic circle Gardénia, founded by Paul Fabre.

In Le Faiseur d'hommes (The Maker of Men) (1884), Dubut de Laforest treated the problem of artificial insemination of a woman for the first time in the history of literature.

[2] He addressed realities such as the existence of homosexual circles in Paris in La Vierge du trottoir and Esthètes et cambrioleurs.

Collected in the thirty-seven volume series Derniers Scandales de Paris (1898–1900), his novels of manners depicted a whole parallel world of prostitutes, pimps and bad boys.