[1] In 1660 he was appointed professor of philosophy and eloquence in the University of Caen, and in 1675, president of the Collège des Arts in the same city.
He was an associate of Pierre Daniel Huet, who converted him to Cartesianism,[2] and Jean Renaud de Segrais.
A publisher in Caen was asked to print sixty copies of the work to be sent to competent judges before making it public.
On 30 March 1701, François de Nesmond, bishop of Bayeux condemned seventeen propositions taken from Cally's work as leading to heresy concerning transubstantiation.
He also wrote and published a new edition with commentaries of Boethius's work, De consolatione philosophiae (Caen, 1695).