He spoke French, Spanish, and Haitian Creole and functioned as an orator, linguist, and improviser for the Louisiana legislature as a clerk for over ten years.
Jean left the island at a very young age with his family due to the Haitian Revolution but eventually migrated to Philadelphia where he studied law.
His parents were Elizabeth Renée and M. De Montagé but he was raised in Mareilles by his uncle Major Canonge, Jean attempted to return to Haiti but the revolution continued and it was unsafe so he migrated to Philadelphia where he studied law with French American linguist and philosopher Peter Stephen Du Ponceau and eventually traveled to Francophone New Orleans where he lived out the remainder of this life.
She passed as white and was the daughter of wealthy planters, her parents were Jean Mercier and a beautiful Creole woman named Maria Garcia de Fontelle.
The LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street was burned by an enslaved cook while a mob gathered, Judge J. F. Canonge was responsible for the deposition on April 12, 1834.