Jean-Baptiste Teste

Jean-Baptiste Teste (20 October 1780, Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Gard – 20 April 1852, Chaillot, now in Paris) was a French politician of the July Monarchy. He fell from grace in the Teste-Cubières scandal.

The son of Antoine Teste, lawyer to the Parliament of Provence, and of his wife Élisabeth Boyer, Jean-Baptiste Teste studied under the Joséphites in Lyon. He distinguished himself early in his education, according to Joseph Marie Portalis, in the "Demosthenic forms" of his oratorical debut (noted by others for his elocution difficulties).

He was received as a lawyer in Paris and at first enrolled at the Paris bar, where he pleaded successfully several times, before returning to set up as a lawyer in Nîmes. Acquiring a great reputation in Nîmes, during the Hundred Days Napoleon made him Lyon's police chief. He was elected on 17 May 1815 as deputy to the Hundred Days Chamber for Gard (50 votes out of 73) but was unable to attend the parliament due to his administrative duties. Proscribed on the Second Restoration, he sought refuge in Liège, where he again practiced as a lawyer until being expelled and forbidden to return for 22 months after defending the anti-Russian and anti-Austrian journal Le Mercure surveillant. During that time he tried to set up again in Paris, but failed since he was refused entry to the Paris bar, and thus after the 22 months stayed on practising in Liège until 1830, building up a large client base.

King William I of the Netherlands charged him with managing the royal lands and estates. He also pleaded for the house of Orléans in a trial with the Rohans about the duchy of Bouillon, merged into the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814. It was during that trial that he met André Dupin (Dupin aîné), lawyer to the house of Orléans. He was able to return to Paris and re-enrol at the Paris bar after the July Revolution, and soon came to reach the top jobs such as lawyer to the royal lands and to the treasury.

...
Wikipedia