 Graduated in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and modern Greek at the École des langues orientales, he continued his studies at the École pratique des hautes études, where he wrote his thesis, which was a translation of the "Traité des termes relatifs à la description de la beauté" by Chéref-Eddîn Râmi (Bibliothèque de l'EPHE, fasc.25, 1875).After he joined the Ministère des affaires étrangères, he was sent as a student-dragoman to the Consulate of France in Damascus (1875–1878) and was later consul in Istanbul (1878–1898).