In 1675 he moved from Ambert to Paris and in 1785 he was elected to join the Académie Royal des Sciences and became a Pensionnaire Géometre of the Académie (1699). He had then already been given a pension by Jean-Baptiste Colbert after solving one of Jacques Ozanams problems.
Rolle was an early critic of calculus; arguing that it was inacurate and based upon unsound reason. He later changed his opinion.