A lieutenant-general of cavalry, he was arrested in 1793 for his monarchist views . He found freedom during the federalist insurrections and hastened to emigrate, only to return to France after 9 Thermidor . He then became a representative of Vaucluse on the council of the Five Hundred , where he took up the defense of those who had delivered Toulon to the English. Under the Empire , he was appointed head of division at the Ministry of Justice..

Joseph Bernardi was the author of numerous works on law, the history of law and jurisprudence. He also published a translation La République de Cicéron as well as historical essays on Jacques Cujas , Abbé Suger and Michel de L'Hospital . He is the author of a Praise of the historian Jean-Pierre Papon , published in the Journal des Débats in January 1803.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed during his lifetime. Subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century. Cicero introduced into Latin the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary with  neologisms  such as evidentia, humanitas, qualitas, quantitas  and essentia, distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher.

Though he was an accomplished orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During his consulship the Catiline conspiracy attempted to overthrow the government through an attack on the city by outside forces. Cicero suppressed the revolt by summarily and controversially executing five conspirators without trial. During the chaotic middle period of the first century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. Following Caesar's death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and consequently executed by soldiers operating on their behalf in 43 BC having been intercepted during an attempted flight from the Italian peninsula. His severed hands and head were then, as a final revenge of Mark Antony, displayed on the Rostra.

Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, and classical Roman culture. According to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, "the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him, of the rest of Classical antiquity." The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the 18th-century Enlightenment. His impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers and political theorists such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu, and Edmund Burke was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in global culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.