In 1892 he attained a professorship at the University of Lyon, later serving as a professor of botany at the Faculty of Sciences of Bordeaux (1901–32).He is known for his investigations of Phaeophyceae, being a taxonomic authority of numerous brown algae species.
In 1926 he described the order Sporochnales.
His name is lent to the mycological genus Sauvageautia (Har., 1892) as well as to the algae genus Sauvageaugloia (Hamel ex Kylin, 1940).The French Academy of Sciences awarded him the Prix Montagne for 1904.