Having finished his studies there, he was appointed tutor to the young comte de Valançay, who was killed at the battle of Blenheim (1704).
In 1712 he was secretary of the embassy of the duc d'Aumont to London as liaison between King Louis XIV of France and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, in the negotiations that led up to the Treaty of Utrecht.
Aside from his academic dissertations and his Histoire des Vestales[1] ("History of the Vestal Virgins") (1725), which caused a stir of interest in this aspect of ancient Rome, the Abbé Nadal composed five tragedies: Saül (1705), Hérode (1709), Antiochus, ou les Machabées (1722), Mariamne (1725) and Osarphis, all on classical or biblical subjects.
He was included in Le Parnasse françois project of Évrard Titon du Tillet, which provoked Voltaire's sarcastic epigram (see Évrard Titon du Tillet).
Nadal was convinced his tragedy of Mariamne had failed because of Voltaire's "brigue horrible et scandaleuse" that set Paris against it, and said so in the preface to the printed play, giving Voltaire the opportunity to reply under a pseudonym with withering compliments ("Lettre de M. Thieriot à M. l'Abbé Nadal", 1725), commiserating with Nadal, that it was solely the machinations of Voltaire's intrigues "that one hears it said so scandalously that you are the worst versifier of the century and the most tiresome writer.