Born into an aristocratic family, Rochegude (Albi 1741 – Albi 1834) studied at the École des Gardes-Marines in Rochefort, and was then  sent on a mission to the Indian Ocean (1765-68). Imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment, he abandoned the title of “marquis” and joined the Revolution in its earliest stages. In 1790, he served as a member of the Constituent Assembly. He was re-elected at the Convention, and the Council of Five Hundred (1795), under the Directory.

In 1819, Rochegude (with whom Raynouard had entered into correspondence in 1815) published two books, which earned him an honorific title from the Toulouse Académie des Jeux Floraux: Le Parnasse Occitanien, ou choix de poesies originales des troubadours, tirées des manuscrits nationaux and Essai d’un glossaire occitanien, pour servir à l’intelligence des poésies des Troubadours. The Parnasse occitanien (based on texts by troubadours excerpted from manuscripts) defined Occitania as those countries “whose people said hoc for yes” when, in the 12th century, the French territory was divided in two languages. He credited the troubadours with having created vernacular poetry, accessible to everyone, as distinct from the more elitist and formal Latin. Moreover, in the introduction of the book, Rochegude denounced the fanaticism of Albigensian crusades which in the early 13th century wiped out the civilization of the Midi. The Glossaire occitanien aimed to be an ancillary tool for the comprehension of 11th-, 12th- and 13th-century texts in langue d’oc.