 His noble parentage is known to us through the manuscript memoir of Grasset, a Celestine monk of the seventeenth century ("Discours généalogique de la noble maison de Bertrand et de leur alliance avec celle de Colombier)".The legal profession seems to have been the first aim of his education.He successively studied and taught law in the Universities of Avignon, Montpellier, Orléans, and Paris.