He carried himself well in civil life and was of irreproachable private conduct.

The chief attraction of military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and irreproachable idleness.

Returning from this mission, he pronounced an eloquent discourse in favour of the republic. His simple manners, easy speech, ardent temperament and irreproachable private life gave him great influence in Paris, and he was elected president of the Commune, defending the municipality in that capacity at the bar of the Convention on the 31st of October 1792.

He was nevertheless a man of respectable abilities, of an irreproachable private character, and a good speaker.

He was a disciplinarian, a scholar, a modest and moderate man of genuine piety and irreproachable morals.