Reginald French was educated at Dartmouth College (A.B., 1927) and Harvard University (M.A., 1928, Ph.D., 1935). He was a fellow at the University of Rome, 1929-1930, and then taught at the University of Missouri, 1930-1931 and Williams College, 1931-1935. In 1937 he joined the department of Romance Languages at Amherst College, where he taught until 1972.