Chancellor of Bourges, he served as bishop of Limoges from 1739 to 1758 but left behind no written works and little is known of his life. It is known he was a modest and sincerely pious man, which earned him an appointment as preceptor to the duke of Burgundy, who died in 1761 aged 9, then to his brothers, the future Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X. He was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1761.