Background
Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry was born on January 13, 1750, in Fort-Royale, Martinique, the son of Bertrand-Médéric and Marie-Rose Moreau de Saint-Méry.
Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry was born on January 13, 1750, in Fort-Royale, Martinique, the son of Bertrand-Médéric and Marie-Rose Moreau de Saint-Méry.
Moreau studied law in Paris.
Then he came became a lawyer at the parlement of Paris. He subsequently returned to Martinique to practise law, and in 1780 was appointed member of the colonial council of San Domingo. Returning to Paris in 1784, he received a commission to study the legislation of the French colonies, and published Lois et constitutions des colonies françaises de l'Amériqne sous te Vent de I 5 50 0, 1785. In 1789 he was president of the assembly of the electors of Paris, played an active part in the early days of the Revolution, and was designated by Martinique deputy to the Constituent Assembly. His moderate ideas were the occasion of his arrest after August 10, 1792, but he contrived to escape to the United States, opened a bookseller's shop at Philadelphia, and published Description topographique et politique de la partie espagnole et de la partie française de l'Ile de Saint-Domingue (1796-1798). Returning to France in 1799, he became historiographer to the navy and councillor of state, and drafted in part the colonial and maritime code. In 1802 he was appointed by the First Consul administrator of the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, but was dismissed in 1806 for slackness in repressing insubordination. From that date until his death on January 28, 1819, he lived on a pension paid him by the Empress Josephine, who was a kinswoman of his.