Quitting the army after three years, he became a physician after studying medicine at Turin.

Later moving to Paris, he became a writer of poems, romances and medical works while also dabbling in aphrodisiacs and mesmerism.

Doppet threw himself wholeheartedly into the French Revolution, was elected to the Legislative Assembly and became a Jacobin.

Appointed commander of a volunteer battalion, he took part in the French invasion of Savoy in 1792.

The government used him because he was politically safe but it finally became clear that his military talent was almost non-existent.