Tall and handsome, he befriended Georges-Jacques Danton and they shared the expensive lifestyle, supported in part by government contracts, including one with François Lanchères who ran a large company of military transports and whom the Minister of War Narbonne had entrusted to supply artillery horses.

On 6 October 1791, he asked the Vice President of the Assembly to be called to order after he described Louis XVI as "sovereign" and two days later he attacked the minister Montmorin, causing his resignation.

On 5 February 1792 he named Louis XVI as the cause of all troubles in refusing to sanction the decrees relating to non-juring priests and on 13 March asked for the confiscation of property of emigrants.

To avoid having to justify sums newly fallen into his wallet, he married his new mistress setting up for himself, 4 June 1793, with the notary Viennot at Vincennes, a dowry of 350,400 pounds.

Roland, very well informed, said that this business of justifying the source of funds found an appeasement with the elimination of the Girondins so much longed for; "There exist," she wrote from prison, "in the hands of the former Chairman of the Department of Eure, two letters of Lacroix, formerly tax judge at Anet.