His brother was
also an archaeologist, and it is probably from his influence that he developed
a passion for languages in general and for Egypt in particular. While he was
at the Lyceum, he presented a paper in which he argued that the language of
the Copts in contemporary Egypt was in essence the same as that used by the
Egyptians of antiquity.
His education continued at the
College de France, where he specialized in languages of the Orient. He knew
bits and pieces of many languages, and was fluent in several others. A partial
listing of the languages he was familiar with is astounding: Hebrew, Arabic,
Syriac, Chaldean, Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic, Sanskrit, Pahlevi, and Persian.
When he finished his education,
he was invited to teach Royal College of Grenoble, where he taught history and
politics. By the age of 19, he had earned his Doctor of Letters and his career
began really taking off. He continued to teach at Grenoble until 1816. In
1818, he was appointed to a chair in history and geography at the Royal
College of Grenoble, and taught there until 1821.
While he was teaching, he continued his research on ancient Egypt. He began to be noticed by others, and that resulted in his appointment as the conservator of the Louvre Museum’s Egyptian Collection in 1826
