Captain D'Agoust was an officer of the Swiss Guards, described by Thomas Carlyle in his classic recounting of the French Revolution, as a "cast-iron" individual. On 4 May 1788, fourteen months before the Revolution, the captain, acting on the order of the Court of Versailles, marched the Parliament of Paris out of the Palais de Justice and removed the key from the premises. The event is considered one of the key mileposts on the road to the Revolution.