François-Jules de Contades

Contades was born on 29 December 1760 in Angers, the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department.

[2] His paternal grandfather was Louis Georges Érasme de Contades, Marquis de Contades, a prominent battlefield commander during the Seven Years' War who was made a Marshal of France.

In 1791, during the French Revolution, he joined the Armée des Émigrés, a counter-revolutionary armies raised outside France by and out of royalist émigrés, with the aim of overthrowing the French Revolution, reconquering France and restoring the monarchy.

In 1795, he became Colonel of a Light Infantry regiment known as Talpaches de Rohan, raised by Cardinal Louis-René de Rohan (but owned by his nephew, Charles Alain, Prince of Guéméné) He later fought in the Régiment de Rohan in the service of Austria, reaching the rank of Major-General.

[4] On 9 March 1791, Contades was married, by contract, to Cécile Emilie Céleste Eléonore "Mérote" de Bouillé (1774–1801), a daughter of Marie Louise Guillemette de Bègue and François Claude Amour, marquis de Bouillé, one of King Louis XVI's generals who was a leading conspirator involved in the royal family's failed flight in 1791 (the failure of which forced Bouillé into exile).