NISARD, JEAN MARIE. NAPOLEON DESIRE, b. France, 1806. In 1828 he became a contributor to the Journal des J_Mbats, assuming a vigorous opposition to the government of Louis XVIII. After the revolution of 1830, for a short time he gave a warm support to the Louis Philippe government, then joined the opposition, and as one of the editors of the National was co-laborer with Armand Carrel in the most vigorous attacks upon the sinister divergence of Louis Philippe's administration from the path marked out for it by Lafayette. But soon changing, for the remainder of his life he was a champion of the past in politics, literature, and art; and cut to the quick, in his criticisms, the works of Hugo and other poets and dramatists of his own time. His works secured attention by their profuse and graceful diction, and an agreeable expression of irnagina tion. Guizot, prime minister of Louis Phillippe, made him supervisor of.normal schools in 1835, and promoted him to higher positions each year, until lie loved the government better than his former opinions, and supported Louis Philippe as warmly as lie had before satirized him. He sat as deputy in the chambers, 1842-48; and in his literary which was continued, plainly avowed that the French spirit was in its decad ence, and looked back to the age of Louis XIV. for its brightest exemplars. Left in
the shade by the revolution of 1848, he recovered place and power, political and literary, under the reign of Napoleon III. As lecturer in the college of France in 1855, he made such servile use of his opinions to defend the perjuries of emperor that the students refused to listen, and gave him a charavari, which resulted in the imprisonment of 15 students, and the protection of subsequent lectures by a strong police force. Napoleon rewarded Nisard by naming him commander of the legion of honor in 1856, and director of the normal school in 1857. He failed to acquire the respect of the higher order of students, and used repressive measures against the free expression of opinions in the schools and colleges of France. Among his principal works are Histoire de la litteratur' 11ra-n false, Pates latins de la decadence, and an early article in the Debats entitled De lo litterature facile, et de la litterature di, cite.