Edmée-Clémence Le Bas, née Duplay

I know I promised to post on Simon Duplay, but due to transcibing issues, that post isn't ready yet. Instead, I present you with a curious little article. Now, you will observe that this article makes a number of mistakes: Éléonore was the eldest of Duplay's children; Jacques-Maurice did indeed marry and have children; Sophie's husband was called Auzat, not Augat; Victoire existed (really!); Jacques Duplay and Marie Bontemps had other children; etc.

However, one thing in particular struck me as odd. I knew that Philippe Le Bas fils married his cousin Edmée-Clémence Duplay, but I wasn't entirely sure how they were related. Now, if this short article is correct and Mathieu Duplay was her father, the very latest she could have been born is 1783 (and that's assuming she was born after his death, so it's even likely that she was born before that). This would make her at least eleven years older than Philippe and thus at least 34 to his 23 at their marriage in 1817. Now, stranger things have been known to happen (and obviously I have no problem with men marrying women more than ten years their senior if that's what they want to do, but if it's unusual now, it's doubly so for the 19th century), but I'm somewhat surprised that no one else has remarked upon this... Which makes me think it might be another error on the part of this account. However, for the moment I don't have any sources that would permit me to determine one way or the other....

This has been your daily portion of random. I would say more, but I have a concert to go to (Monteverdi's madrigals, if you must know).

Update: According to wikipedia, Edmée-Louise-Clémence Duplay was born 27 floréal an VII, which would make more sense. However, no source is cited and that still doesn't tell us who her parents were. Simon Duplay, perhaps? I know he had a son who became a doctor, but I don't know when (or if) he married. All I can find for certain is that she died in May of 1875.

Interesting to note as well, while it seems that Philippe Le Bas fils didn't have any children with his wife, he did have two illegitimate children (whom he apparently never officially recognized), which gives some ironic perspective to his insistance that his aunt, Éléonore, couldn't have possibly been sleeping with Robespierre, which information he of course implies comes from his mother - when he says that "we" have known Éléonore for over fifty years, he can't possibly be speaking for himself, since he was not yet forty at her death - but it will be noted that Élisabeth herself never thought this noteworthy enough to mention. Meanwhile, all the writers (Esquiros, Lamartine, etc.) who talked to Élisabeth Le Bas confirm that her son never left them alone with her and seemed to police what she told them in order to make sure they didn't publish anything contrary to what he conceived of as his family's honor. Which is not to imply that if he had let her say what she wanted she would have said that Éléonore was sleeping with Robespierre. Assuming she knew or cared, that's not necessarily the kind of thing she would broadcast either. In any case, Philippe obviously didn't know first hand and it's unlikely his mother or Éléonore herself would have discussed it with him, which makes me think he doth protest too much.

Also, while we're on the subject of Philippe Le Bas fils's children, the author of TOBALB (Paul Coutant) was married to his son Léon Grujon Le Bas (1834-1907)'s daughter Élisabeth-Clémence Grujon Le Bas (same source as above).

...One of these days I may construct a family tree to keep track of all the Duplays and Le Bas. >.>