He embraced the ideas of the French Revolution with enthusiasm, sympathised with the Jacobin Club, and later edited the journal Feuille du salut public.
Attached to the party of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, he was looked on with suspicion by the police of the First French Empire, and during the later years of the Empire spent his time in retirement at Provence.
During the Hundred Days, however, he served under Lazare Carnot at the Ministry of the Interior.Under the Bourbon Restoration he defended Liberal principles in the Constitutionnel, of which he was the founder.
Although Louis Philippe had been his friend since the days of 1789, he accepted no office from the July Monarchy.
He retired from the Constitutionnel in 1838, and died on nine years later.