A student with Paul Perdrizet at the faculty for letters of Nancy, he joined the École Normale Supérieure and obtained the agrégation de lettres.
As member of the French School of Athens, he participated in the research program established by Théophile Homolle in Delos and worked on the epigraphy of the site.
Chosen by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff to edit the catalog of dedications and decrees of Delos (1914) for issue IV of the Inscriptiones Graecae, he defended his thesis in 1916.
Professor at the lycée Janson-de-Sailly during World War II, he became master of conferences on Greek literature and language at Bordeaux University in 1918, then in Strasbourg and took the direction of the French School at Athens in 1925.
In addition to Delos, he directed excavations at Malia, Thasos and Philippi.