He was a professor of philosophy in a college of the Oratory, and doctor of the faculty at Angers, when in 1792 he was sent as a representative (_depute_) to the National Convention, and being versed in educational questions he was placed on the Committee of Public Instruction and elected its president.

He was the means, as Hamy states, of saving from a lamentable destruction, by rejuvenizing them, the scientific institutions of ancient France.

During the Revolution he voted for the death of Louis XVI.
Lakanal also presented a plan of organization of a National Institute, what is now the Institut de France, and was charged with designating the first forty-eight members, who should elect all the others.

He was by the first forty-eight thus elected.

Proscribed as a regicide at the second restoration, he sailed for the United States, where he was warmly welcomed by Jefferson.