JACQUES DUVAL D' French magistrate and politician, was born in India on Dec. 5, 1745 at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Dupleix. He studied law in Paris, and became in 1775 conseiller in the parlement of Paris, where he defended the rights of the parlement against the royal prerogative. On Nov. 19, 1787 he was the spokesman of the parlement in demanding the convocation of the states-general. A royal officer was sent to the palais de justice to arrest Epremesnil and his chief supporter Goislard de Montsabert, but the parlement (May 5, 1788) declared that they were all Epremesnils, and the arrest was only effected on the next day on the voluntary surrender of the two members. After four months' imprisonment on the island of Ste. Marguerite, Epremesnil was returned to the states-general as deputy of the nobility of the outlying districts of Paris. But with the rapid advance towards revolution his views changed; in his Reflexions impartiales ... (Jan. 1789) he defended the mon archy, and he led the party among the nobility that refused to meet with the third estate until summoned to do so by royal com mand. He was imprisoned for a short time in 1792. In Sept. he was arrested at Le Havre and denounced to the Convention as an agent of Pitt. He was brought to trial before the revolu tionary tribunal in Paris on April 21, 1794, and was guillotined the next day.
D'Epremesnil's speeches were collected in a small volume in 1823. See also H. Carre, Un Precurseur inconscient de la Revolution (1897).