He is known as author of the Rateau proposal to dissolve the Constituent Assembly before all the organic laws had been passed, this preventing any reduction in the powers of the President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.

[2] He voted for the restoration of security and physical coercion, for prosecution of Louis Blanc and Marc Caussidière, against abolition of the death penalty, against the Jules Grévy amendment to suppress the Presidency of the Republic, against the right to work, for the agenda in honor of Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, against reduction of the salt tax, against amnesty, for prohibition of clubs and for credits of the Expedition to Rome to remove the Roman Republic and restore the Pope.

This proposal, supported by the followers of Louis Napoleon, was intended to end the opposition to presidential power by the majority.

Jules Grévy strongly opposed ending the Constituent Assembly before it had passed all the organic laws need to complement the constitution.

The Rateau proposal was revived on 29 January 1849, when the recommendation of the committee that the Assembly should pass all the organic laws before dissolution was rejected by 416 votes to 405.

[2] After the coup d'état of 2 December 1851 in which Napoleon III seized power Rateau returned to private life, and resumed his place at the Bordeaux Bar, of which he was president in 1838, 1856 and 1873.