Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil

Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil (5 December 1745 – 22 April 1794), French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Joseph François Dupleix.

Returning to France in 1750 he was educated in Paris for the law, and became in 1775 in the of Paris, where he soon distinguished himself by his zealous defence of its rights against the royal prerogative. He showed bitter enmity to Marie Antoinette in the matter of the diamond necklace, and on 19 November 1787 he was the spokesman of the parlement in demanding the convocation of the states-general. In September 1793, however, he was again arrested, this time at Le Havre, taken to Paris, and denounced to the Convention as an agent of Pitt. He was brought to trial before the revolutionary tribunal on 21 April 1794, and was guillotined the next day.

D'Eprémesnil's speeches were collected in a small volume in 1823. See also Henri Carré, Un Précurseur inconscient de la Révolution (Paris, 1897).