Born to a family of Protestant refugees from France, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, but expelled on a charge of adultery. This threw him into such a deep state of depression that he decided to sign up for a military campaign in the Flanders: he was made a captain and held important posts at the major German courts. After the Peace of Utrecht he went back to civilian life, writing poetry and splendid plays. He made a journey to Italy in 1720-21 and after embarking on a love affair with a nun, married her in Rome. He traveled the length and breadth of the continent, in the retinue of “men of position”; his wanderings came to an end in 1738 with his death in Paris.

The Remarks on Several Parts of Europe and Portugal: Relating Chiefly to the History, Antiquities and Geography, of those Countries through Which the Author has Travel'd; as France, the Low Countries, Lorrain Alsatia, Germany, Savoy, Tyrol, Switzerland, Italy and Spain, dedicated to his traveling companion George Lord Viscount of Malpas, are made up of two volumes and forty elegant and refined copperplate illustrations. The Italian experience occupies the whole of the second volume: the journey took him from Bolzano to Rome, passing through Trent, Verona, Brescia, Milan, Pavia, Parma, Reggio, Modena, Bologna, Rimini, Pesaro, Loreto, Macerata, Spoleto and Terni. Breval followed Addison in the layout of the contents, with chapters devoted to the various cities, but differed from him in the lavish set of illustrations that he included.