Joachim-Jean-Xavier d'Isoard

Who is Joachim-Jean-Xavier d'Isoard?

Joachim-Jean-Xavier d'Isoard was a French bishop and cardinal.

He was born in Aix-en-Provence to a noble family as the younger of two brothers. His father died early and he was sent to the minor seminary of Aix, where he became friends with Joseph Fesch, the uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte, but did not finish his ecclesiastical studies. During the Reign of Terror, he sought asylum in Italy at the court of future Louis XVIII of France in 1794, but returned to France in the same year. After the coup of 18 Fructidor, he was again forced to flee to Italy. Returning after Napoleon established the Consulate, he accompanied Fesch, meanwhile French ambassador to the Pope, to Rome, and was appointed auditor of the Roman Rota at his instigation in 1803.

France occupied and annexed the Papal States in 1809 and took Pius VII as their prisoner, exiling him. D'Isoard followed the pope into French exile and refused several offices Napoleon offered him, including that of a senator. The Pope was freed by the coalition towards the end of Napoleons' reign in 1814, and d'Isoard likewise returned to work at the Roman Rota. During the Hundred Days, he briefly also was named French chargé d'affaires to the Holy See.