Director of the Paris Observatory, later Permanent Secretary of National Institute in Paris.
He was imprisoned after Napolean III's 1851 coup d'éat, and died in 1853 aged 70.
He was a good friend of Alexander von Humboldt, and corresponded with Prosper Merimée.

Of his nine other brothers and sisters, Etienne outlived him and was a hero of the 1848 Revolution and the Commune of 1870, and Jean was a hero of the Mexican War of Independence. One of his sons - Alfred Arago (1816-92) - was Inspector of Fine Arts from 1852.
A friend of Delacroix, and Merimée.