A conseiller since 1750 at the Châtelet, or municipal courts of Paris. An examining commissioner for the Société libre d’émulation.

Made discoveries useful to the science of mechanics. A freemason, he was a member of the lodge, Les Coeurs Simples de l’Etoile Polaire (1775-87). The Société apollonienne (“le Musée”), an academic society founded in November 1780, which invited Franklin to its sessions, met at his home on the rue St. André des Arts until November 1782.