ABSTRACT
The death of the engineer passed without any public notice, reflecting the fact that during his lifetime none of his publications had met with much success. One reason for this failure was surely the inaccessibility of Isnard’s writing. It cannot be said that his talent for penetrating social and economic theorising was matched by the literary gifts of elegant formulation and sound composition. Especially in the last decades of the Ancien Regime the latter were prerequisite for literary success. Interestingly, Isnard himself recognised his shortcomings as a writer. Some years after the publication of his main economic work, the Traité des richesses, he noted that
[…] it is not written with the lightness that suited the public for which it was intended. Only people capable of profound reflection read it. The author was happy to receive their approbation, which was most precious to him.
