Jean-Baptiste Esménard (1772–1842) was a French journalist during the Napoleonic era. He was brother to the poet Joseph-Alphonse Esménard and uncle of the artists Inès Esménard and Nathalie Elma d'Esménard.
At age 20, Esménard was a soldier who left France in 1792 to settle in Bourbon Spain, where he remained until the outbreak of the Peninsular War.[1] There he supported Joseph Bonaparte, who reigned in Spain as King Joseph I from 1808 to 1813; but when Joseph I was defeated he returned to France.[1] He was imprisoned in the Force Prison from 1810 to 1814 for his role in a Legitimist plot.
Esménard went on to become a journalist, contributing to Gazette de France, La Quotidienne, Journal des Débats and Mercure, and working as a translator.[1] He translated a large part of the memoirs of the Spanish diplomat Manuel Godoy. In the 1836 English edition of this book, he is credited as editor and as author of the 65-page introduction, with his rank given as lieutenant-colonel.[2]
Jean-Baptiste Esménard, ed., Memoirs of Don Manuel de Godoy (London: Richard Bentley, 1836)