Career
As a teenager he began work as an apprentice gardener at the Muséum national d"histoire naturelle in Paris. In 1875 he was sent on a botanical expedition to Cyrenaica. He collected specimens for a Portugues botanist Julio Augusto Henriques on Berlenga Grande Island, Portugal.
From 1876 to 1893 he served as head gardener of the botanical gardens in Lisbon.
Afterwards, he was curator in the herbarium and botanical garden in Montpellier. Plants with the specific epithet of daveauanus are named after Daveau, an example being: Erigeron daveauanus.
