Mascart was born in
Quarouble,
Nord. Starting in 1858, he attended the
École normale supérieure (rue d'Ulm), earning his agrégé-préparateur three years later. He acquired his doctoral degree in science in 1864. After serving at various posts in secondary education, in 1868 he moved to the
Collège de France to become
Henri Victor Regnault's assistant.
Mascart was appointed to succeed Régnault as the tenured Régnault chair in 1872, which he held until his death. In 1878 he also became the first director of the Bureau Central Météorologique.
Mascart's graduate student
Henri Bénard carried out groundbreaking experiments in thermal convection, as part of his dissertation research, in Mascart's laboratory. Bénard's doctoral thesis was defended in 1901.
Mascart died in
Paris at the age of 71. Obituaries were published in the Journal de Physique théorique et appliquée[2] and in Nature.[3] Mascart's son-in-law
Marcel Brillouin and his grandson
Léon Brillouin were also noted scientists.