Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Isambert, Henry

ISAMBERT, Henry (e-zam'-bair), French sol- dier, b. in Cahors in 1749; d. in Santo Domingo in December, 1800. He served in the colonial troops from 1769 till 1792, and commanded the Royal Martinique regiment in Santo Domingo at the beginning of the French revolution in 1789. He took an active part in the repression of the troubles that the new democratic principles caused in the island among the slaves, advising the sum- mary execution of the rioters, and sometimes de- nying them even a trial. He was recalled in 1792, and imprisoned during the reign of terror on sus- gicion of being a royalist; but the downfall of Robespierre, which happened the day before his proposed execution, saved him, and he was after- ward released. He was elected a member of the council of the ancients in 1796, but was again ar- rested and transported, with other distinguished victims of the reaction, to Guiana. His faithful wife, a Creole of Martinique, joined him, and he bought an estate to avert suspicion, but in June, 1798, escaped to the Dutch city of Paramaribo and sailed for London. Having obtained his par- don in the following year, Isambert returned to France, where Bonaparte reinstated him in the army with the rank of major-general, and attached him to the staff of Gen. Rochambeau, who was preparing to sail for Santo Domingo. There he distinguished himself against the rebel negroes, and was killed in an engagement near Caves. He published " Journal des faits relatifs a la journee du 18 f ructidor, du transport, du sejour et de Inva- sion des deportes, suivi d'un abrege historique sur la Guiane Francaise" (2 vols., London, 1799), and " Histoire de Saint Domingue, l'element noir et la colonisation Francaise " (Sinnimari, 1798).