Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil

Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil (5 December 1745 – 22 April 1794), French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Joseph François Dupleix.

He showed bitter enmity to Marie Antoinette in the matter of the diamond necklace, and on 19 November 1787 he was the spokesman of the parlement in demanding the convocation of the states-general.

[1] After four months imprisonment on the island of Ste Marguerite, Eprémesnil found himself a popular hero, and was returned to the states-general as deputy of the nobility of the outlying districts of Paris.

But with the rapid advance towards revolution his views changed; in his Réflexions impartiales ... (January 1789) he defended the monarchy, and he led the party among the nobility that refused to meet with the third estate until summoned to do so by royal command.

After a narrow escape from the fury of the Parisian populace in July 1792 he was imprisoned in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, but was set at liberty before the September Massacres.