A French professor and littérateur, born at Paris; in 1827 was professor in the College Louis-le-Grand, and in 1834 was nominated to the chair of Literature in the Sorbonne; as leader-writer in the Journal des Débats he vigorously opposed the Democrats, and sat in the Senate from 1834 to 1848; in 1869, as Saint-Beuve's successor, he took up the editorship of the Journal des Savants, and in 1871 became a member of the National Assembly; he published his collected essays and also his popular literary lectures (1801-1873).