Career
Educated in Paris, he resigned his army commission to study law. Auditor of the royal court. Deputy attorney-general by 1821.
He preached throughout France and in Rome, Belgium, and London.
His calm, eloquent De l"Existence et de l"Institut des Jesuites of 1844, vindicating the Society, sold 25,000 copies in one year. However, the Jesuits" strife continued until they were forced to disband for a time in France.
Despite painful controversy with his superiors and imputations from other quarters, he remained loyal to his order. In 1854 he brought out Clement XIII et Clement XIV, a dispassionate treatise, of no great literary merit, on the defender and the suppressor of the Jesuits.
He steadfastly refused preferment, even the archbishopric of Paris, devoting himself to other works.
He died a saintly death, and thousands followed the remains of the "Apostle of Paris" to his grave.