A lawyer in Saintes in 1784, Jacques Garnier stood out from the beginning of the French Revolution by creating and chairing a committee to acquire wheat stocks and sell them at auction. He was Mayor of Saintes in 1790, general attorney of Charente, and he was elected deputy to the French National Convention by the department of Charente-Inférieure. As a member of the Jacobin Club, he aligned himself with the most radical of the Montagnards, whom he considered the faction of public salvation. Jacques Garnier was verbally violent, demanding that the Convention ban in perpetuity emigres of both genders, punishable by their executions if they return to France; this act, with modification, was known as the Law of Suspects. He maintained that Louis XVI should not be treated as accused, but as an enemy, and should be "sacrificed to security and justice." His public speeches, often incoherent, were always lengthy; he was forbidden the podium for twenty-four hours during the Trial of Louis XVI. After voting for the king's death, he joined the Committee of Public Safety, 25 March 1793. His exasperated colleagues dealt with his interminable interruptions and vitriol by sending him on a mission to the army of the coast at La Rochelle in late April 1793, where he enthusiastically pursued those he perceived as enemies of the revolution. He was therefore not involved in the elimination of Girondins.