Joachim Jérôme Quiot du Passage joined the 3rd Volunteer Battalion of Drôme under Claude-Victor Perrin in the fall of 1791, when he was just sixteen. Assigned to the Army of the Alps, his unit elected him captain in 1793. He first saw battle at the siege of Toulon before being transferred to the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees. Quiot du Passage was restationed with the Army of Italy following the 1795 Peace of Basel that ended the War of the Pyrenees. He served under Napoleon Bonaparte during his 1796-1799 campaign in Italy. He was reunited with Perrin, now a general, and served as Perrin’s aide-de-camp. Quiot was wounded at the Battle of Rivoli and later commanded the left wing of Perrin’s division during the Battle of Marengo, which drove Austria out of Italy.