Defending the idea of a constitutional monarchy, close to certain liberals such as Félicité de Lamennais, the Count of Montalembert, and the chansonnier Béranger—who was an advocate of the House of Orléans and whose lyrics he had put into music—he remained profoundly attached to his country and rose to the position of General Counsellor of the "Nord" (nowadays the French region "Nord-Pas de Calais"). Volume IV of his Scriptores de musica medii aevi was about to be issued when, as his daughter Lilia wrote the day he died in Lille on 10 January 1876, exhausted by his affairs «our poor father finished with his weapons in his hands whilst serving the district».