Langlois is known to have been born in Surrey to a father who engaged in various artistic occupations, such as goldsmithing, watchmaking and art dealing. He appears to have achieved some popularity with still life, landscape and genre scenes in watercolour and oil between 1862 and 1873, when he is known to have exhibited at the Royal Academy. There are newspaper reports in the 1870s and 80s of his paintings being auctioned by private collectors, but few merit a specific title, Langlois merely appearing in lists of largely unknown artists whose works were included in the auctions. The titles mentioned suggest the popularity of his figurative work over landscape and still life: Pancake Day was auctioned in Leicester in 1882, Pet Rabbits was auctioned first in Cardiff in 1882 and then again in the same year in Portsmouth. Village School was up for sale in Liverpool in 1888.

Today his genre paintings in oil are still the most popular of his works at sales.