The young Jean-Marie Goujon abandoned his studies after his father encountered financial difficulties, going first to Dieppe and then Saint-Malo to join the Navy. Having enlisted at the age of twelve as a seaman aboard the "Diadême", he was on board the "Saint-Esprit" at the Battle of Ushant (1778) against the English fleet. The next day he wrote his father a letter that was read aloud in the garden of the Palais Royal as a victory bulletin.