[1] A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, he served during World War I from 1914 to 1918 as an aviator officer.
After the war, his brother Jean-Richard Bloch encouraged him to write and he entered various literary circles.
In 1935, he led a research team in compiling the French Encyclopedia.
During World War II, he participated in the Resistance and Liberation of Nice where he became city councilor from 1947 to 1959.
In the last years of his life, he directed the collective work of the Histoire littéraire de la France.