He later became a politician in Gers department – in its capital of Auch there is a portrait of him in the town museum and the gendarmerie barracks was named after him in January 2002.

He became mayor of Lectoure in 1791 but three years later joined the army as a captain in the 2nd Gers Volunteer Battalion, fighting in Carinthia and in Tyrol during the 1796 and 1797 Italian campaigns.

He was a member of the committee which organized the Kingdom of Westphalia and so became minister of war and chief of staff to its first king, Jérôme Bonaparte.

In 1808 he was summoned to fight in the Peninsular War, where he fought in the attack on Lascanti on 18 November before pursuing the enemy to Terracina.

He was made governor of Haute-Souabe at the start of the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and also commander of a division in 9th Army Corps.

Louis-Philippe I's government appointed him to the Chamber of Peers on 9 November 1831 and allowed him to retire on 11 June 1832 at the rank of lieutenant general.