His father, a lawyer at Strasbourg, compelled his son, who was an ardent disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, to follow the parental profession, much against his will. Roederer began his political life in 1788, by publishing a pamphlet on the “Deputation to the States-General,” when he also became a journalist. Sent by the electors of Metz to the States-General, as a representative of the _Tiers État_, he took an important part in the debates, proposing the new law reforms, the institution of trial by jury, the abolition of religious orders and of titles of nobility, and demanding also liberty for the press and equality in political rights for every citizen. He showed great financial ability, compiled the new stamp and patent laws, inventing a new system of taxation. He was a member of the Jacobin Society until June 20, 1792, after which date (the day of the first invasion of the Tuileries) he seceded from the club, and from that period the extreme party were his mortal enemies. On August 10 he, together with Merlin, conducted the Royal Family to the Assembly, and protected, helped, and comforted them to the best of his power. The following day he was denounced by the Jacobins, but not arrested, and he prudently disappeared from the Assembly, and devoted himself entirely to the sub-editorship of the _Journal de Paris_. An article in this paper, dated January 6, 1793, in which Roederer denied the right of the Convention to try the King, brought him into immediate danger; however, he fled from Paris, and did not reappear there until after the 9th Thermidor (July 28, 1794). In 1795 he became editor of the _Journal de Paris_. He was threatened with transportation to Guienne during the Directorate, and only saved by the direct intervention of Talleyrand. He was now satisfied that a firm and stable government was the sole means of the regenerating of France, and was therefore an active agent for what he termed the “generous and patriotic conspiracy” of the 18th Brumaire. He wrote the “Address to the Parisians,” which was placarded upon the walls of Paris on that eventful morning. Bonaparte made him Councillor of State on 25th December, 1799, and in 1802 he was named Director of _L’Esprit Public_, a position which gave him control of all the theatres and of public instruction. In 1806 he was sent to Naples, of which Joseph Bonaparte had just been created King, and by Napoleon’s orders undertook the duty of Neapolitan Finance Minister, which post he continued to hold under Murat. In 1810 he was appointed administrator to the Grand Duchy of Berg. When the Bourbons returned, he quitted political life and retired to his country seat, the Château of Bois Roussel, devoting himself until 1830 to literary pursuits.