ISNARD, MAXIMIN (1758-1825), French revolutionist, dealer in perfumery at Draguignan, was elected deputy (for the Var) to the Legislative Assembly, where he joined the Girondists. Attacking the court, and the "Austrian committee" in the Tuil eries, he reproached Louis XVI. for infidelity to the constitution. But on June 2o, 1792, when the crowd invaded the palace, he was one of the deputies who tried to protect the king. After Aug. 1o, 1792 he was sent to the army of the North to justify the insurrec tion. Re-elected to the Convention, he voted the death of Louis XVI. and was a member of the Committee of General Defence organized on Jan. 4, 1793. On April 4, Isnard presented the report recommending a smaller committee of nine, which two days later was established as the Committee of Public Safety. On May 25, he was presiding at the Convention when a deputation of the commune of Paris came to demand the release of Hebert ; Isnard made the famous reply : "If by these insurrections, continually renewed, it should happen that the principle of national represen tation should suffer, I declare to you in the name of France that soon people will search the banks of the Seine to see if Paris has ever existed." On June 2, 1793 he offered his resignation as repre
sentative of the people, but his arrest was not decreed until Oct. 3. He escaped, and on March 8, 1795 was recalled to the Convention, where he supported all the measures of reaction. He was elected deputy for the Var to the Council of Five Hundred. In 1797 he retired to Draguignan. In 'Soo he published a pamphlet De l'immortalite de in which he praised Catholicism ; in 1804 reflexions relatives au senatus-consulte du 28 floreal an XII., an enthusiastic apology for the Empire. Upon the restoration he pro fessed royalist sentiments, and was not disturbed, in spite of the law of 1816 proscribing regicide ex-members of the Convention.
See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention (2nd ed., igo6).