They were the sons of General Jean Auguste Margueritte (1823–1870), who after a career in Algeria was mortally wounded in the great cavalry charge at Sedan and died in Belgium on 6 September 1870.

Victor entered his father's regiment, the Chasseurs d'Afrique, in 1888, and served in the army until 1896, when he resigned his commission.

He was already known by some volumes of poetry, and by a translation from Calderon (La Double méprise, played at the Odéon, 1898) when he began to collaborate with his brother.

[2] His novel La Garçonne (1922), which depicted a sexually liberated young woman who wanted to "live like a man," was considered so shocking it caused the author to lose his Légion d'honneur.

[3] During the Second World War, Victor Margueritte, a fervent pacifist, collaborated with Germany, like others, in the name of peace.