In 1948 he received the Prix Goncourt for his novel Les grandes familles (The Rise of Simon Lachaume).
He was elected to the 30th seat of the Académie française on 8 December 1966, succeeding Georges Duhamel. He was elected as “Perpetual Secretary” in 1985, but chose to resign the office in late 1999 due to old age; he successfully pushed for Hélène Carrère d'Encausse to succeed him, the first woman to do so, and was styled Honorary Perpetual Secretary after 2000. On the death of Henri Troyat on 2 March 2007, he became the Dean of the Académie, its longest-serving member.