His family moved to Paris, and at thirteen he obtained permission from his mother Marie-Madeleine du Crest, shortly before her death, to join the French Navy, inspired by the exploits of a brother who had distinguished himself during the boarding of a British ship.

Back in France, he embarked in Lorient on the corvette Heure-du-Berger[3] for a twenty-seven month campaign in the Indian Ocean, at the end of which in 1770 he obtained the rank of garde-marine, sealing his engagement in the French Navy.

[6] He rejoined the Comte de Guichen for the battle of Martinique in April 1780, then, in charge of carrying missives to Saint-Domingue, he found himself upon a British naval division at night and was taken prisoner by HMS Phoenix on 26 June 1780.

In 1784, he spent only a few months on land before embarking on the ship Séduisant,[3] which carried the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte Choiseul-Gouffier to Constantinople,[8] and then commanded Ariel,[3] a frigate stationed in the Windward Islands, from 1785 on.

[8] Promoted to the rank of captain on 1 January 1792,[3] he was assigned to a squadron under the command of Vice Admiral de Girardin, tasked with quelling the royalist rebellion then wrecking Martinique.

He witnessed the frantic developments of the first days of the Haitian revolution and Surveillante became the refuge of many colonists fleeing the slave revolt: he took in, for example, about a hundred inhabitants of Cayes and took care of them at his own expense for several months.

[10] Promoted to the rank of Counter Admiral on 1 January 1793,[3] he was appointed to head a naval division in charge of gathering all the commercial vessels still in the various ports of Saint-Domingue, and then to bring them back to the French mainland.

[10] In April 1793 he left Brest on Éole[3] and upon his arrival in Cap-Français in June 1793, he discovered the capital of the French colony ravaged by political divisions between the supporters of the governor-general of the island Galbaud du Fort and those of the revolutionary commissioners Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel, all the while revolting slaves were getting dangerously close to the city.

The colonists of the Mascarene Islands immediately welcomed them it with a frigid reception: fearing a situation similar to that of Saint-Domingue, the colonial assembly simply refused to submit to the authority of the commissioners.

This lack of support for the men of the Directory, and perhaps this complicity in this seditious turn of events,[18] was reproached to Sercey by minister Truguet, as the rebellion of the Mascarenes was making headlines in Paris.

[19] In her memoirs, Sercey's cousin Félicité de Genlis asserts that the demonstration and expulsion were a "bold manoeuvre" by the Marquis to prevent the commissioners from "revolutionising the colony," which, according to her, "saved it a lot of bloodshed".

He compensated for his limited means by keeping his ships constantly at sea and by operating in the manner of a privateer, financing his supplies through the sale of his numerous catches, notably several East Indiamen taken off the coasts of Ceylon and Sumatra.

[24] After many captures, the division docked in Batavia, where it remained for a little more than a month, the counter admiral taking advantage of this rest to negotiate a treaty for the supply of food to the Isle de France.

[25] Arriving at the Isle de France in February 1797, though reinforced by the corvette Brûle-Gueule and the frigate Preneuse, issues quickly accumulated: the governor and the colonial assembly were still in no way cooperative, stating that it would no longer be possible to feed the crews of Sercey's ships.

He wrote a report explaining his conduct during his years of campaigning, but was met with the hostility of minister Denis Decrès who held him responsible for the fatal outcome of the division of the Indian Ocean.

Sercey obtained his retirement on 5 August 1804, was among the first awarded the Legion of Honour by newly-crowned Emperor Napoleon I on 9 December 1804,[31] and then returned to Isle of France, where he settled in Port-Nord-Ouest as a planter.

Following the first abdication of Napoleon in April 1814, following the Emperor’s defeat in the War of the Sixth Coalition, Sercey was part of the delegation tasked with meeting with King Louis XVIII, then living in exile at Hartwell House, in England.

Recalled to service at the Bourbon Restoration, he was made president in May 1814 of a commission mandated by Baron Pierre-Victor Malouët to go to London to organise the release of at least 57,000 prisoners, many of them imprisoned in difficult conditions.

[33] Accompanied by the Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Georgette du Buisson de La Boulaye [fr], he was given a sum of 420,000 francs to cover the expenses of transporting and caring for the prisoners[33] and was welcomed at the Court of St James's.

He received the oaths of allegiance of French officers to the Bourbon government, and proceeded towards the liberation of the prisoners according to a gradual selection on criteria of personal qualities and loyalty to the monarchy.

[3] He enjoyed a good reputation in the circles of power of the Restoration: the Count of Villèle, Prime Minister of Kings Louis XVIII and Charles X from 1822 to 1828, described him in his memoirs as "one of the most distinguished officers of our old Navy".