Antoine Garrigues de Flaujac was born on 5 September 1780 in Montfaucon (Lot), France, to Marie Jeanne Sabrejon and Jean Charles Garrigues. One secondary source cites his full name as Antoine Paul Joseph Louis Garrigues de Flaujeac. He signed his letters to his mother "Garrigues de Flaujac," and refers to himself therein as "Garrigues." He joined the French Revolutionary army while in his teens, and served in the Italian campaign of 1800. Garrigues arrived in France's Saint-Domingue colony on the island of Hispaniola in April 1803, apparently intent on engaging in trade, but failed to find a situation and served in the National Guard during the final chaotic months of the Haitian Revolution. The French were defeated at the battle of Vertières in November 1803, and the last troops left the island before the end of the year, allowing for the establishment of the Haitian republic. Garrigues seems to have left Saint-Domingue around this time, though his movements are not entirely clear. He mentions spending a few days on "Coubes" (Cuba?) before attempting to sail to Charleston, South Carolina. But his vessel was blown off course, and he ended up, feverish and starving, in the United States' newly purchased Louisiana Territory. Garrigues soon moved to Opelousas in St. Landry Parish, where he met and married Marie Louise Fontenot (1789?-1862), the daughter of a legislator in Natchez, Mississippi Territory. The couple lived in Opelousas and had six children, and Garrigues purchased a number of slaves. Garrigues served as a government surveyor, a judge, and a Louisiana state senator, and was a private in the 1st (Fortier's) Battalion of the Louisiana Militia during the War of 1812. He died in 1845 and is buried in Opelousas, Louisiana.