Born in Metz, the son of a magistrate, he studied Law at the University of Strasbourg, and, at the age of twenty-five, became councillor at the parlement of Metz, and was commissioned in 1787 to draw up a list of remonstrances. During the period, he became an admirer of the economist Adam Smith, and helped make his works known in France. His 1787 work Suppression des douanes intérieures advocated the suppression of internal customs houses; the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes it as "an elaborate treatise on the laws of commerce and on the theory of customs imposts". On the proposition of Roederer, in 1787, the Royal Society of Science and Arts of Metz offered a prize for the best essay in answer to the question: "What are the best means to make the Jews happier and more useful in France?". Abbé Gregoire was one of three laureates with his Essay on the physical, moral and political regeneration of the Jews. It was the first step towards their emancipation, which was always defended by Roederer. In 1788 he published the boldly liberalpamphletDéputation aux États généraux. Partly on the strength of this he was elected deputy to the Estates-General by the Third Estate of the bailliage of Metz. Although not present at the event of June 1789, Roederer was sketched by Jacques-Louis David into his drawing of the Tennis Court Oath. In the National Constituent Assembly, Roederer was a member of the committee of taxes, prepared a scheme for a new system of taxation, drew up a law on patents, occupied himself with the laws relating to revenue stamps and assignats, and was successful in opposing the introduction of an income tax.
After the close of the Constituent Assembly, he was elected, on 11 November 1791, procureur général syndic of the départment of Paris. The directory of the départment, of which the Duc de la Rochefoucauld d'Enville was president, was at this time in pronounced opposition to the radical views that dominated the Legislative Assembly and the Jacobin Club, and Roederer was not altogether in touch with his colleagues. For example, he took no share in signing their protest against the law against the non-juring clergy as a violation of religious liberty. But the directory did not long survive: with the growing revolutionary opposition in the capital, many of its members resigned and fled, and their places could not be filled. Roederer himself left in his Chronique des cinquante jours an account of the pitiable part played by the directory of the départment in the critical period between the failed insurrection of 20 June 1792 and the successful insurrection of 10 August. Seeing the perilous drift of things, he had tried to get into touch with King Louis XVI, and it was on his advice that the latter took refuge in the Assembly on the same 10 August. Roederer himself fell under suspicion and went into hiding during the Reign of Terror, emerging again only after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre and the start of the Thermidorian Reaction.
Mémoires sur l'administration du département de Paris; Des institutions funéraires convenables à une république; De l'intérêt des comités de la Convention
Mémoires d'économie publique, de morale et de politique, 2 vol.; De la philosophie moderne
Petits écrits concernant de grands écrivains
De la propriété considérée dans ses rapports avec les droits politiques
