His mother was governess to the children of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; she was succeeded by Madame de Polignac.

After his parents became disgraced with his fathers debts, the family moved from Versailles and had to sell their famous townhouse, the Parisian Hôtel de Rohan-Guémené.

He emigrated from France in 1791[2] and resided in Austria[2] where he joined the army and was promoted to Field Marshal.

At the death of his distant cousin Jacques Léopold de La Tour d'Auvergne the Duke of Bouillon in 1802, Charles Alain was the nearest relative in the family since his grandmother Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne[3] was Jacques Léopold's aunt.

He purchased the Sychrov Castle in Bohemia (today in the Czech Republic) where he died in 1836.