Background
Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès was born at Grenade in Languedoc, of a family of the lower nobility.
Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès was born at Grenade in Languedoc, of a family of the lower nobility.
Before 1789 Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès was a cavalry officer, but in that year was returned as deputy to the states general. In the Constituent Assembly he belonged to the section of moderate royalists who sought to set up a constitution on the English model, and his speeches in favour of retaining the right of war and peace in the king's hands and on the organization1 of the judiciary gained the applause even of his opponents. Apart from his eloquence, which gave him a place among the finest orators of the Assembly, Cazales is mainly remembered for a duel fought with Barnave. After the insurrection of the 10th of August 1792, which led to the downfall of royalty, Cazales emigrated. He fought in the army of the Imigris against revolutionary France, lived in Switzerland and in England, arid did not return to France until 1803.
