Born in Turin, he was the third child of four and the eldest son. Made a Knight of the Annunciation in 1696, he married, at
Moncalieri on 7 November 1714,
Marie Victoire Françoise of Savoy (1690–1766), legitimised daughter of the
Duke of Savoy,
Victor Amadeus II, at the time
King of Sicily (and later
of Sardinia), and of
Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue. His father-in-law showed affection for him but ended up depriving him, in 1717, of his 400,000 livres of annual income because of excessive spending. It was then that he ran away to France, at the end of 1718, in order to take possession of his inheritance. Since he had lost the
Château de Condé to Jean-François Leriget de La Faye when it was confiscated from his family by
Louis XV on 6 March 1719, he established himself in the
hôtel de Soissons, which he transformed, with his wife who had followed him there, into a "sumptuous gaming house" which for a time sheltered the economist
John Law. He died, ruined, and his hôtel was razed to construct in its place a grain-trading hall, now the site of the
Bourse de commerce de Paris. Next to his mother-in-law,
Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue, he counted in the 1730s among the most influential amateurs and art collectors in Paris. He gathered in an important painting collection which was sold after his death in 1742 partly to Louis XV, King of France, and to
August III of Poland, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. He had a passion for the Paris Opéra, and was named intendant of the
Menus-Plaisirs by Louis XV. He brought about the disgrace of the
tax farmer Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière after he caught him in the company of his mistress, the actress
Marie Antier. ==Family==