After travelling in the Levant and in India, he settled in Paris in 1829. Besides writing for the Radical press, he edited the Histoire scientifique et militaire de l’expédition française en Egypte in ten volumes (1830-36) and Dumont d'Urville's Voyage au tour du monde (1833).
In 1840 he published Etudes sur les reformateurs on socialistes modernes which gained him the Montyon prize (1841) and a place in the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (1850). In 1843 he published Jérôme Paturot a la recherche d'une position sociale, a clever social satire that had a prodigious success. In 1846 he abandoned his democratic views, and was elected liberal deputy for Marseilles.
His Jérôme Palurot a la recherche de 10 meilleure des republiques (1848) was a satire on the new Republican ideas. After the coup d'état of 1849 he ceased to take part in public life, and devoted himself entirely to the study of political economy. To this period belong his La Vie de l'emploi (1855); L'Industrie en Europe (1856); and Etudes sur le régime de nos manufactures (1859).
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.