He was one of six children (four of whom grew to adulthood) of Jean-Baptiste Schaal, a lawyer in Colmar and Anne Barbe Kubler.

When the critical time came, however, Schaal was a mere figurehead implementing a strategy at Mainz that he had neither thought of, or approved.

[9] He tried to re-enter the military in 1799, seeking an appointment to André Masséna's Army of Helvetia.

[1] His name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe, on the eastern side of the fourteenth column facing the Champs-Élysées.

[12] He was the father-in-law of General Henri-Jacques Martin de Lagarde, who married his daughter, Marie, Augustine (born 1796) in Mainz, on 1 February 1815.