Palante was born in
Saint-Laurent-Blangy in the
Pas-de-Calais on 20 November 1862. His father Emile Palante was an accountant from
Liège. Palante's older brother Emile died when he was only five years old. He studied successively at the college of Arras where he excelled in Latin, then at
Lycée Louis-le-Grand where he earned his bachelor's degree. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts at the
University of Douai. In 1885, he began his career as professor of philosophy at
Aurillac, where he met his future wife Louise Genty, whom he married three years later. The couple had a daughter named Germaine in 1890. Between 1886 and 1888, he studied in Châteauroux. In 1888, he received his
agrégation in philosophy. Palante separated from his first wife in 1890 and was appointed to teach at the Lycée de
Saint-Brieuc,
Brittany, then in the following years at
Valenciennes,
La Rochelle and
Niort. In 1893, he translated a work by
Theobald Ziegler and began to publish articles. He returned in 1898 to the Lycée de Saint-Brieuc, at which he worked for the remainder of his teaching career. Meanwhile, he continued to work on his philosophical ideas, publishing articles and essays in journals. Palante published collections of his articles in various books, notably ''Combat pour l'individu
(Fight for the Individual
) in 1904 and La Sensibilité individualiste
(The Individualist Sensibility'') in 1909. In 1907, Palante completed a draft doctoral thesis at the
Sorbonne, but it was never authorized. However, he published the draft under the title ''Antinomies entre l'individu et la société
(Antinomies Between the Individual and Society
) in 1912, expanding it two years later under the title Pessimisme et individualisme
(Pessimism and Individualism''). In 1908, Palante stood in municipal elections as a socialist candidate, but he was not elected. He took over from
Jules de Gaultier at the philosophy journal
Mercure de France, holding the position for thirteen years. In 1916, he befriended the writer
Louis Guilloux. During this period, Palante lived a bohemian lifestyle, drinking heavily and notoriously marking his students' essays in a local brothel. He married his second wife Louise Pierre in 1923 and retired from teaching a year later. On 5 August 1925, Palante died from a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head. The reasons for Palante's suicide are not certain, but he is known to have been suffering from
acromegaly, a condition diagnosed when he was a student. A severe degenerative disease which had no cure at time, it was making his life more and more painful. == Philosophy ==