He was a disciple of Malherbe, who said that in the workmanship of his lines he excelled Racan, but lacked his rival's energy.
The reading of Malherbe, it is said, first awoke poetical fancies in him, but for some time he attempted nothing but trifles in the fashion of the time - epigrams, ballades, rondeaux, etc.
He was also a noted politician in his home region, and a tireless letter-writer (10,000 of his letters survive, and he was in constant correspondence with Malherbe, Hugo Grotius, the brothers Dupuy, Alphonse-Louis du Plessis de Richelieu, and with his great friend Rubens.
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His correspondence to François de Malherbe throws light on the personality of Malherbe's troubled son Marc-Antoine Malherbe.
Principal literary collaborations include work with Nicholas Awde, the editor of the Caucasus World series published by Routledge and co-owner of the publishing house Bennett and Bloom, JonArno Lawson, the writer of a number of fantastic books, and Michel Malherbe, the prolific writer and editor of the Parlons... series published by the French publishing house L'Harmattan.
Malherbe has been married to actor, filmmaker and musician Alex van Warmerdam, and appeared in five out of six films he directed — Voyeur (1986), The Northerners (1992), The Dress (1996), Little Tony (1998), Grimm (2003) and The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009).
Malherbe has also joined them on various tours, and has appeared with Gong and Hadouk at all Gong Family Unconventional Gatherings in 2004 and 2005 at the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms, and 2006 at the Melkweg in Amsterdam, at which Gong's set was filmed and released as a DVD.
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Under the name Hadouk Trio the band has toured and played with many artists in Europe, while Malherbe himself has continued to perform individually and with other artists (particularly Brigitte Fontaine and guitarist Pierre Bensusan) in Japan and the U.S.
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In 1975, when Allen left Gong, Malherbe along with Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Pierre Moerlen, Miquette Giraudy as Gong recorded 1975's Shamal.
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Malherbe and Daevid Allen began collaborating again with Gongmaison in 1989, which eventually began performing and recording again under the name Gong on the studio albums Shapeshifter (1992), Zero to Infinity (2001), and 2032 (2009) after rejoining with various members of the classic line-up, including Gilli Smyth and Mike Howlett, among others.