Isnard, Maximin

Honoré-Maximin Isnard

b. 24 Feb 1758, Grasse, Var [1]
d. 12 Mar 1825, Grasse, Var

Title: Président de la Convention nationale (President of the National Convention)
Term: 16 May 1793 - 30 May 1793
Chronology: 16 May 1793, elected, session of the National Convention, salle des Machines, Palais national des Tuileries, Paris [2]
17 May 1793, assumed the chair, session of the National Convention, salle des Machines, Palais national des Tuileries, Paris [3]
30 May 1793, ceased to exercise the functions of office upon the election of a successor [4]
Names/titles: First name also recorded as: Henri-Maximin; baron Isnard, baron de l'Empire (baron Isnard, baron of the Empire) [from 2 Oct 1813]
Biography:
Born in the family of a rich merchant; was engaged in trade and established a perfumery business at Draguignan; elected to the Assemblée nationale (National Assembly) (1791-1792) as a representative of the département of Var; sided with the Girondins; demanded the disbandment of the king's bodyguard, reproached King Louis XVI for infidelity to the Constitution; elected (5 Sep 1792) to the Convention nationale (National Convention) (1792-1793, 1794-1795) as a deputy for Var; voted for the death sentence in the trial of Louis XVI; reported on the creation of the Comité de salut public (Committee of Public Safety) on 6 Apr 1793; served as President of the National Convention (16 May 1793 - 30 May 1793) during the final days of confrontation between the Girondins and the Montagnards [5]; avoided the proscription together with the Girondin deputies decreed by the National Convention (2 Jun 1793); was forced to subscribe to "voluntarily" suspension of his functions as deputy (2 Jun 1793); arrested on orders of the Commune of Paris (28 Sep 1793); escaped and went into hiding; returned to politics and regained his seat in the National Convention (4 Dec 1794) after the Thermidorian coup d'état; was elected (14 Oct 1795) to the Corps législatif; selected to sit in the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of Five Hundred) as a deputy for Var (1795-1797); retired from politics and devoted himself to literature; published Proscription d'Isnard (1795), Réflexions relatives au sénatus-consulte du 28 floréal an XII (1804), Dithyrambe sur l'immortalité de l'âme (1805); was not proscribed as regicide due to religious and royalist sentiments expressed in his writings.
Biographical sources: Dictionnaire des Conventionnels, 337-340; Dictionnaire des parlementaires français 1789-1889, 3:384-386.
Elections:

Candidate Votes (16 May 1793)
Honoré-Maximin Isnard 202
Jacques-Alexis Thuriot de la Rosière n/a
voters/absolute majority 332/167
Source of electoral results: Archives parlementaires - Série 1, 64:768; Procès-verbal de la Convention nationale, 12:18.

[1] Isnard was born 24 Feb 1758 and baptised 25 Feb 1758 as is evident from his baptismal record preserved in the Archives of the Alpes-Maritimes département, register of baptisms, marriages and burials in the parish of Grasse, 1757-1758, f. 15; birth date is correctly given in Dictionnaire des Conventionnels, Dictionnaire de biographie française, vol. 18, Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, while a number of biographical works erroneously state that he was born on 16 Feb 1751 or 18 Feb 1758.
[2] Archives parlementaires - Série 1, 64:768; Procès-verbal de la Convention nationale, 12:18.
[3] Archives parlementaires - Série 1, 65:1.
[4] Archives parlementaires - Série 1, 65:628; Procès-verbal de la Convention nationale, 12:276; Moniteur universel, 1er semestre de 1793, p. 659.
[5] A violent incident caused by energetic response of Isnard to the petition of the Parisian section of Cité and verbal attacks of Jean-Paul Marat forced Isnard to abandon the chair amidst the session of 27 May 1793. Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède and then Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles chaired the rest of the meeting.