In 1845, entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Paris and was ordained four years later. He successively taught philosophy at the seminary in Avignon, and theology at the seminary in Nantes and officiated in his ecclesiastical capacity at Saint-Sulpice. He eventually resigned his post to assume the vows of a friar of the Order of the Carmelites, taking the religious name of Hyacinthe. He then spent two years in the Carmelite convent in Lyon, and attracted much attention by his preaching at the Lycée in Lyons.