He was fascinated by the sea and marine life (and although it has virtually never been to sea itself, most of his novels place in a maritime setting).
The World War I interrupted his studies of letters. Early in the war because of his poor eyesight, he was a stretcher-bearer on the battlefields of northern and eastern France. Because of the lack of army officers, he was prompted to return to Saint-Cyr. He ended the war on the eastern front, and was discharged a year after the Armistice.
He then rejoined Dinan, where he was appointed in 1921, professor at the College of Letters. He supported a doctorate in letters in 1927, with a thesis whose subject is: "The images in the work of Corneille". The Academie francaise awards it the Saintour prize of literary history. Dinan extinguished it in 1957.
His war memories inspire some of his earlier books:
Our Father Trajan,
Captain Conan,
Lena, but the maritime world is at the heart of his work.
Off Eden earned him the Prix Femina from the France-America Committee in 1932. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1934 for
Capitaine Conan.
Several of his works were brought to the screen:
- Trailers, 1941 (dir. Jean Gremillion, with Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Madeleine Renaud, Fernand Ledoux)
- Duguesclin, 1949 (dir. Bernard de Latour, with Gisele Casadesus, Louis de Funès Gérard Oury)
- The murky waters, 1949 (dir. Henri Calef, with Jean Vilar, Ginette Leclerc, André Valmy, Mouloudji) is based on the new blades Deaf.
- The great bulwarks, 1954 (dir. Jacques Pinoteau Courcel Nicole Marie Mansard, Jean-Pierre Mocky)
- Capitaine Conan, 1996 (dir. Bertrand Tavernier, Philippe Torreton, Samuel Le Bihan, Bernard Le Coq)