Lawyer from La Rochelle. Vice-president of the Jacobin club in July 1792, he took the place of Danton as deputy prosecutor of the Commune after August 10. Elected to the Convention, he votes for the death of the king and participates in the fall of the Girondins. President of the Convention in 1793, he immediately entered the Committee of Public Safety. Friends of Collot d'Herbois he will support the policy of Robespierre and will participate in the elimination of the factions of Hébert and Danton. He broke with Robespierre at Thermidor but was sentenced to deportation to Cayenne.
He is part of a family of French painters, sculptors and scholars. He himself was a writer and astronomer, he belonged from 1785 to the three academies (French, Fine Arts and Sciences). Member of the Third Estate, he became President of the National Assembly. After the storming of the Bastille, he i