He entered the army, but was soon compelled by illness to give up military life. After the revolution of 1830 he was made successively prefect of the departments of Loire and Isère, and in 1831 of Rhône. For his promptness in suppressing an insurrection at Lyons in 1834, he was raised to the peerage. He became minister of the interior in 1836, and gave his attention especially to prison reforms and the establishment of hospitals. He occupied the same position in the short-lived cabinet of March 1839. In 1848 he accepted the management of the national agricultural institute at Versailles. The institute was abolished in 1852.