In 1848 he began to engage in politics, becoming the Paris correspondent for "L'Indépendance belge" in Brussels. His submissions were "very remarkable" and "full of life and spirit, and also full of information." He also became a noted theatre and music critic, first for "L'Opinion nationale", for which he later wrote a Monday column entitled "Revue dramatique et lyrique", then for "La France" in 1865, and finally for "La Presse". "After Jules Janin he was the critic who was most respected and feared." Many of his reviews were collected and published in 1867 in book form as "Entre cour et jardin: études et souvenirs du théâtre" ("Between Court and Garden: Studies and Recollections of the Theatre"). In 1873 he published a collection of sketches of famous dramatists as "Les Coulisses du passé" ("In the Wings of the Past") and the book "Les Sièges héroiques" ("Heroic Sieges"), which tells the stories of celebrated sieges from the liberation of Orléans by Joan of Arc in 1429 to the bombardment of Strasbourg in 1870.