Being a good musician, he obtained the protection of the king's daughters, taught them the harp, and conducted the weekly concerts which, during the life of Marie Leczinska, they gave to the king and the royal family.

He wrote two or three plays, none of which had any great success, while one was a decided failure.

He became involved in lawsuits, one of which he conducted himself against the best ability of the Parisian bar, and displayed such wit and readiness that he not only gained his cause, but established a notoriety which throughout life was apparently his dearest object.

He crossed over to England, where he made the acquaintance of Wilkes, and one or two agents of the American colonies, then just commencing their insurrection; and, partly from political sympathy with their views of freedom, partly, as he declared, to retaliate on England for the injuries which France had suffered at her hands in the Seven Years' War, he became a political agent himself, procuring arms and ships to be sent across the Atlantic, and also a great quantity of stores of a more peaceful character, out of which he had hoped to make a handsome profit.

But the Americans gave him credit for greater disinterestedness; the President of Congress wrote him a letter thanking him for his zeal, but refused to pay for his stores, for which he demanded nearly a hundred and fifty thousand francs.