He studied at the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, graduating on 1 October 1840 as a sous-lieutenant. He took part in the Crimean War, the French conquest of Algeria, campaigns in China and the Franco-Prussian War. A friend of Gambetta, he was minister for war several times in 1881, then in 1883 and 1885. He then became a sénateur inamovible. He also secretly translated The Perfumed Garden.^[1]

• G. Vapereau, «Campenon, Jean Baptiste Marie Edouard » in Dictionnaire Universel Des Contemporains, Paris : Hachette, 1880. (p. 10) OCLC 36982383