He was a descendant of the noble family of Forcade from Béarn in the Kingdom of Navarre, a Protestant nobleman, but abjured from ProtestantismChaix d'Est-Ange, Tome 18, Page 316 (in French) shortly before the end of his life, under intimidation from the policy of harassment of religious minorities through the use of dragonnades, created in 1681, to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism or to leave France, and under the threat of confiscation of properties of nobles who did not convert.
