As promised...

[montagnarde1793]

...More from That Book About Le Bas. ^__^ This one is mostly footnotes, I'm afraid.

V

 

Retrospective notes. – Maximilien Robespierre welcomed into the Duplays’ home. – Who Duplay the cabinetmaker was. – His fortune. – The reasons for his political convictions. – His family. – Robespierre’s “court.” – Duplay’s daughters. – Éléonore and Robespierre; Élisabeth and Le Bas. – Simon Duplay. – Guests and associates. – Saint-Just and Henriette Le Bas. – Charlotte Robespierre.

 

                The rumor having spread, on the evening of 17 July 1791, that the leaders of the democratic movement were going to be arrested, Robespierre could not return home without danger. The entrepreneur in carpentry Duplay,[1] who had great admiration for him, offered him asylum for the night; was it coming out of the Jacobin Club, of which they were both part? Was it returning from the Champ-de-Mars, as Charlotte Robespierre later affirmed? Did other people – and Mme Roland claims to be of their number – have the same generous thought as Duplay? The subtle controversies on this point do not excite me: Robespierre’s partisans and enemies too easily take hold of the least facts to deduce extravagant consequences from them.

                Robespierre accepted Duplay’s invitation.

 

*              *              *

 

                To clear up Duplay’s personality and evoke his exact physiognomy, we must refer ourselves to the writings of contemporaries and draw from documents of the time.

                The portrait that d’Aubigny – one of the most violent adversaries of party to which the cabinetmaker had devoted himself – traced of him is very characteristic:

                “I have always seen Duplay, a good father, a good husband, of a sure probity, of a mild and indulgent character, as incapable of yielding his probity to the caprices of a few ambitious men.”

                And the conventionnel Baudot, whose hostility for Robespierre, for Saint-Just, and Le Bas, is however notorious, expresses himself thus on the account of Robespierre’s host:

                “The Duplays,” he says,[2] “were very honest citizens… All the Duplays languished for long in the prisons: men, women, girls, children. When this crisis was over (but it lasted long for them), this family had nothing more pressing than to contain themselves in the domestic circle of its occupations, and it did well. Would it be believed, after this, that the Directory included Duplay père in the Babeuf conspiracy three years later and that he was taken to Vendôme! Duplay knew neither Babeuf, nor his system, nor the other accused, and he was acquitted as he should have been.”

                Maurice Duplay was, at the time he knew Robespierre, the owner of three houses in Paris;[3] he had rented a house for himself in the Rue Saint-Honoré from the nuns of the Conception, for the sum of 1,800 livres in principal and 244 livres for pot-de-vin (lease passed before Choron, Paris notary, on 5 May 1787); his rents rose to fifteen thousand livres, amassed in forty years of labor.[4] He represented the well-off bourgeoisie of the time therefore; and justice must be done him on this first point: in casting himself into the revolutionary movement, he was pushed by none of the sordid reasons of ambitious declasses, nor by any of the motives which make life’s poor and disinherited the normal followers of new doctrines.

                If he adopted democratic principles, Ph. Le Bas fils said, it is because his unfailing probity, his pure and strict mores, brought him to regard the execution of those ideas of antique virtue that made so many hearts beat faster then, as possible; it is that he took the projects of social reform seriously; it is that he was ready to make many personal sacrifices to what he regarded as a path to public happiness, with joy.

                He could have, from the origins, foreseen that his conduct would lead him to ruin in and the worst catastrophes: towards the beginning of 1793, his houses would no longer rent; he was obliged to take up his trade again and give up a yet well-earned rest.[5] After the misfortunes that we will recount, Duplay, returned to liberty, was occupied with gathering together the debris of his fortune; at the time of the depreciation of the paper money, his debtors – and notably the government, for which he had executed some works – had reimbursed him in worthless assignats; he did not believe he had to acquit himself in the same manner towards those from whom he had borrowed money; he sold all his houses to pay them in hard cash.[6] This act of probity consummated his ruin. He would have been reduced to poverty without his son’s help.

                Let us rectify, at the same time, a few errors spread on his account: having been called several times to the jury of the ordinary criminal tribunal, Duplay could not, despite his repugnance, refuse to be a juror at the Revolutionary Tribunal;[7] but he rarely exercised those terrible functions.

                To dispense with having to respond to the convocations, he often invoked, as an excuse, the works with which the government had charged him. There even exist judgments in the minutes of which his name is mentioned, though he had not taken part; the fact has notably been observed during the debates during Fouquier-Tinville’s trial.[8] Neither was he present for the judgment of the queen, nor that of Madame Élisabeth: he was not even called. – It has been claimed, at last, that Robespierre exercised an influence on his votes; Philippe Le Bas fils, liked to recount, to reply to this allegation, the scene that has been reported by Louis Blanc, by Hamel, and by others still: One day when Duplay had sat as juror, his lodger asked him vaguely what he had done at the tribunal: “Maximilien,” he replied, “never have I sought to know what you do at the Committee of Public Safety.” Robespierre, without replying, affectionately squeezed his hand.

---

[1] Duplay, of whom I will soon speak, was not, as has often been written, the compatriot of Robespierre and Le Bas: he was born, in 1738, in Saint-Didier-la Seauve (Haute-Loire).

[2] Baudot : Notes historiques sur la Convention Nationale (D. Jouaust-Cerf, édit. 1893), p. 243.

[3] One house in the Rue des Mathurins, rented for 6,500; a second in the Rue de l’Arcade, with 3,000 livres of rent; and a third in the Rue d’Angoulême, bringing, with an annex situated on the same street, a sum of 5,600. (Information given by Duplay’s son in a note in response to an anonymous accusation made against him in 1815. – Collection Le Bas.)

[4] Duplay had began very modestly; at the time of his marriage, he as yet possessed a capital of only four thousand livres. Here is an extract of the contract signed on 15 January 1766.

                “…Were present sieur Maurice Duplay, cabinetmaker in Paris, residing there, Rue des Quatre-Fils, parish of Saint-Jean-en-Grève, major, son of sieur Jacques Duplay, master carpenter and entrepreneur in buildings in Saint-Didier in Vézelay, and of his wife Marie Bontemps, his father and mother, for one part.

                “Demoiselle Françoise-Éléonore Veaugeois, major and daughter of sieur Jean-Pierre Veaugeois, carpenter of the king’s buildings, and of demoiselle Marie-Anne Huet, his wife, her father and mother, residing ordinarily in Choisy-le-Roy, being this day in Paris.

                “Which parties, in view of the proposed marriage between the aforementioned sieur Duplay and demoiselle Veaugeois, have made and decree the civil conditions of their marriage, in the presence of their parents and friends named hereafter; to wit:

                “On the part of the future husband: M^e Claude Étienne Alleou Desgouttes, lawyer in the Parlement; - Sieur Étienne Villetard, sworn architectural expert by the king, entrepreneur in buildings in Paris, all friends.

                “On the part of the future wife; - dame Marie-Louis Veaugeois, wife of M. Guillaume-Jean Duchange, bourgeois of Choisy, sister; - Jean-Pierre Veaugeois, carpenter of the King’s buildings, brother; - Germain Goudoin, King’s gardener, and Marie Françoise Veaugeois, his wife, sister and brother-in-law; - Guillaume Jean Duchange, nephew; - Charles Turpin, Bourgeois, friends.”

[5] Letter from Madame Duplay to her daughter, Madame Auzat (Papiers inédits trouvés chez Robespierre, t. III, p. 230).

[6] This information was furnished by Duplay’s so, in the note drawn up in 1815, in response to an anonymous denunciation addressed to the king; this note, distributed to the members of the Chamber of deputies, contains the following mention of the point which concerns us:

                “On the exactitude of these facts all my father’s creditors may be consulted, and notably the two principle ones: M. Le Dure, inspector of domains, whose political principles have never been doubtful, and who nonetheless professes an esteem close to veneration for his former debtor, and M. de La Coste, an old man today, almost ninety, who was so moved by my father’s proceedings that he gave him twenty thousand francs off his debt.”                                                                                                             (Collection Le Bas.)

[7] It is interesting to study, in this regard, the composition of the tribunal, such as Robespierre had had it decreed.

                Here is the decree consecrating it:

                “Decree of the National Convention of 26 September 1793, second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, containing the list of judges and jurors composing the four sections of the extraordinary criminal tribunal.

                “The National Convention, upon the presentation made to it by the committees of public safety and general security, of the list of citizens proposed to complete the formation of the four sections of the extraordinary criminal tribunal of Paris, adopts this list as follows:

                                                “President of the tribunal:

                “The citizens:

                “Hermann, president of the tribunal of Pas-de-Calais.

                                                “Vice president:

                “Dumas, from Lons-le-Saulnier, department of Jura.

                                                “Judges:

                “Sellier, judge at the tribunal; Dopsen, id.; Brûlé, judge at tribunal of the 5^th arrondissement of the department of Paris, sitting in Sainte-Geneviève; Coffinhal, judge at the tribunal; Foucault, id.; Bravetz, judge in the department of Hautes-Alpes; Deliège, judge at the tribunal; Subleyras, secretary of the tribunal of the district of Uzès, department of the Gard; Célestin Le Fetz, administrator of the district of Arras; Verteuil, substitute of the public prosecutor, with the tribunal; Lanne, procurer-syndic of the district of Saint-Pol; Ragmey, man of law, of Lons-le-Saulnier; Masson, first commissioner of the secretariat of the tribunal; Denizot, judge of the tribunal of the 5^th arrondissement; Harny, author of the play entitled « Liberty Conquered »; David, of Lille, substitute deputy to the National Convention; Maire, judge of the tribunal of the first arrondissement.

                                                “Public prosecutor:

                “Fouquier-Tinville.

                                                “Substitutes:

                 “Fleuriot-Lescot, substitute at the tribunal; Grébauval, judge at the tribunal; Royer, sent by the primary assembly of Châlon-sur-Saône; Naulin, national commissary of the tribunal of the 5^th arrondissement of Paris; Liendon, judge at the third tribunal.

                                                “Jurors:

                “Antonelle, ex-deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône to the Legislative Assembly; Benoitrais, of the Section du Muséum; Servières, cord makers, of the same section; Fauvetty fils, of Uzès, sent by the Primary Assembly of the Section du Panthéon, Rue Saint-Jacques, n°41; Auvray, employed with the diligences, Section du Mail; Fainot, elector of Paris; Gauthier de Chesne-Chenu, department of Eure-et-Loir; Renard, of the Section du Contrat social; Renaudin, lutemaker, Section des Gardes-françaises; Meyère, member of the Directory of the department of Gard; Chatelet, painter, Section des Piques; Clémence, commissioner in assignats; Gérard, artist, Rue des Poulies, near the Louvre; Fiévé, of the Revolutionary Committee of the Section du Muséum; Leonard Petit-Tressein, of Marseille; Trinchard, of the Section du Muséum; Topino-Lebrun, of Marseille, at the Louvre; Pijol, member of the Committee of Surveillance, Rue Contrescarpe; Girard, metalworker, Rue Saint-Honoré; Deidier, locksmith in Choisy-sur-Seine; Sambat, painter; Vilate, Rue du Bacq; Klispis, jeweler, Rue Saint-Louis-au-Palais, n°68; Chrétien, currently a juror; Leroi, id.; Thoumin, id.; Paul-Jean-Louis Laporte, administrator of the district of Lacey, department of Mayenne; Ganney, currently a juror; Jourdeuil, id.; Brochet, id.; Garnier, Section de la Montagne; Martin, surgeon, Rue de Savoye; Guermeur, of the department of Finistère; Dufour, Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie; Mercyer, Rue du Battoir; Aubry, tailor, Rue Mazarine; Compagne, metalworker, in the gallery of the Theatre of the Republic; Billon, cabinetmaker, Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis; Gimmd, tailor, Section des Marchés; Baron, hatter, Cour du Commerce; Prieur, painter, near the porte Saint-Denis; Lohier, merchant-grocer, Section du Théâtre-Français; Duplay père, Rue Saint-Honoré, n°366; Deveze, carpenter, of the Section de la République; Boisset, elector of Paris; Maupain, id.; Camus, artist, Faubourg Saint-Denis; François-Victor Aigoin, of Montpellier; Picard, ex-president of the Section des Tuileries; Nicolas, printer, Rue Saint-Honoré; Dumon, laborer in Cahors; Besson, sent from the assemblies of Saint-Dizier, department of Haute-Marne; Gravier, vinegar maker in Lyon; Payan, of the department of Drome, employed in the bureaus of the Committee of Public Safety of the Convention; Gillibert, merchant in Toulouse, on the corner of the Bourse; Becu, doctor in Lille.

                “Collated to the original, by us, 27 September 1793.

                                “ROBESPIERRE, ex-president of the National Convention.

                                                “VOULLAND and D.-V. RAMEL, secretaries.

                “In the name of the Republic, the provisional Executive Counsel informs and orders all the administrative bodies and tribunals, that they have the present law consigned in their registers to be read, published, and put up, and executed in their respective departments and jurisdictions; in faith of which, we have apposed our signature and the seal of the Republic.

                “In Paris, the 27^th day of the month of September 1793, second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible.

                “DALBARADE, GOHIER.”

[8] Included in the indictment directed against the former members of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Duplay was acquitted at once on fact and intention.

                My conscience considers it a duty to reproduce the following two documents, extracts from the dossier of the case that M. Léon Le Bas has conserved. Duplay’s acquittal pronounced solemnly seven months after 9 Thermidor, at a time when hatred against Robespierre’s friends was in all its violence, shows to what point the accounts presenting Duplay as a man with sanguinary tendencies or simply as a M. Jourdain of the guillotine, making heads fall without knowing it, are fantastic.

First document.

                “We, Pierre-Paul-Marie Liger, vice president of the Revolutionary Tribunal established in Paris; have seen the declaration of the jury of judgment on the accusation brought against MAURICE DUPLAY, aged 58 years, born in Saint-Didier (Haute-Loire), residing in Paris, Rue Honoré, cabinetmaker before the Revolution, and, since, elector in 1792, commissary of the civil and revolutionary committees of the Section des Piques, ex-juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal until 9 Thermidor.

                                “Bearing in unanimity:

                “That it is constant that maneuvers or plots tending to favor the liberty-killing projects of the enemies of the people and of the Republic, to provoke the dissolution of the national representation and the overthrow of the republican regime, and to excite citizens to take up arms against each other, were practiced in the Revolutionary Tribunal, sitting in Paris:

                “Notably, in making an innumerable crowd of Frenchmen, of all ages and sexes, perish, under the disguised for of a judgment, imagining, to this effect, plans for conspiracy in the diverse prisons of Paris and Bicêtre; writing lists of proscriptions or having them written in these different prisons;

                “Drawing up, in concert with certain members of the former committees of government, drafts of reports on these pretended conspiracies, designed to overtake the religion of those committees and of the National Convention, and to get bloodthirsty orders and decrees out of them;

                “Placing together in the same indictment, judging, and driving to hearings and execution, several persons of all ages, both sexes, all regions, and absolutely unknown to each other;

                “Calling for and ordering the execution of certain women who had declared themselves pregnant, and whom experts had declared not to be able to observe the state of pregnancy;

                “Judging, in who, three, or four hours at the most, thirty, forty, fifty and even sixty individuals at once;

                “Jamming men, women, young people, old people, the deaf, the blind, the ill, and the infirm unto the tumbrils destined for the execution of the death penalty;

                “Having these tumbrils prepared from morning, and long before the hearing of the accused;

                “Not designating the identities of the accused in a precise manner in the indictments, so that, by this confusion, fathers perished for sons and sons for fathers;

                “Not giving the accused knowledge of their indictment, but giving it to them at the moment they entered for the hearing;

                “Delivering the signature to the secretary before the judgment had been written, on blank paper, such that several are still found, in the preamble and view of which a great number of persons, who are all executed, are recalled, but against whom these judgments contain no disposition;

                “Not writing or not having written the jury’s declaration below the questions submitted to it;

                “Which two last prevarications, the necessary result of the criminal precipitation of the judges in the exercise of their functions, has given place to a lot of errors and misunderstandings, one of which is observed perfectly in the person of Pérès;

                “Refusing the accused and their defenders the right to speak; contenting themselves to call the accused by their names, ages, and professions, and forbidding them all defense;

                “Having decrees rendered to remove them from the debates on the pretext of a revolt that never existed;

                “Not posing the questions submitted to the jury in the presence of the accused;

                “Choosing the jurors, rather than having them chosen by lots;

                “Substituting the regular jurors for chosen jurors; judging and condemning the accused without witnesses and without evidence, not opening those which were sent for their conviction or justification; not wanting to listen to the assigned witnesses;

                “Judging persons who had been condemned and executed before the witnesses could appear or the evidence requested and judged necessary to effectuate their judgment be brought;

                “Having a great number of the accused driven to the place of execution and leaving exposed there during the course of their execution, the cadaver of one of their fellow accused, who had stabbed himself during the pronouncement of the judgment;

                “Giving only one declaration on all the accused en masse, proposing that the condemned be bled to less the courage that would accompany them until death;

                “Corrupting public morals by the most atrocious words and the most bloodthirsty discourse;

                “Undertaking liaisons, correspondences, and intelligence with the conspirators already struck by the sword of the law;

                “That MAURICE DUPLAY, ex-juror, is not convicted of being the author of these maneuvers and plots, and, by a majority of 8 votes, that he is not accomplice to them;

                “Let us say that the aforementioned Duplay is acquitted of the accusation; in consequence, lest us order that he will be immediately freed.

                “Written and pronounced in the public hearing of the tribunal, 17 Floréal, Year III, at six o’clock in the afternoon.

                                                                                                                                “LIGER, vice president.

                                                                                                                                “JOSSE, secretary-commissioner.”

 

Second document.

“NATIONAL CONVENTION

“The Committee of General Security.

                “From 25 Floréal, Year III, of the French Republic, one and indivisible.

                “The committee orders that the named Maurice Duplay brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal and acquitted by the judgment of this tribunal, still detained in one of the prisons of the Commune of Paris, will be immediately freed in view of the present, and the seals lifted.

                “The members composing the Committee of General Security.

                                “SEVESTRE, PIERRET, PERRIN, CALES, COURTOIS, KERVELEGAN, ELECLOY,

                                                                                ISABEAU, CHEMIN.”

                                                                                                                (Collection Le Bas.)

Comments

[josiana.livejournal.com]

The book about Le Bas continues to be lovely.
It has been claimed, at last, that Robespierre exercised an influence on his votes; Philippe Le Bas fils, liked to recount, to reply to this allegation, the scene that has been reported by Louis Blanc, by Hamel, and by others still: One day when Duplay had sat as juror, his lodger asked him vaguely what he had done at the tribunal: “Maximilien,” he replied, “never have I sought to know what you do at the Committee of Public Safety.” Robespierre, without replying, affectionately squeezed his hand.

I like this part especially. ^^; I'm not sure I can explain why, though.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

It does, doesn't it? It's one of the few books I know that are consistently wonderful throughout. (The preface by Sardou aside. >.>)

You probably like it because it's cute. And because of its signification. :D?

[josiana.livejournal.com]

Probably. >_>

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Awww, Duplay was also ♥. I love how, unlike many other periods in history that I'm interested in (see: Me reading a book about the last 100 or so years of the Roman Republic and eventually wanting to beat everyone I read about except Cato because they were such. damn. corrupt. assholes. AAGH), the more I read about the people involved the more I like them. I can't wait to see the rest of the section on the Duplays!

Thanks for translating, as always. :3

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Yes, all the Duplays are awesome like that. ^__^ I know, I love that about the Revolution too; I wish other people would realize how just plain likeable the Robespierristes were. Unfortunately, it seems that at the bare minimum to properly appreciate the Revolution--and thus the Robespierristes--one needs three things:

1. To be willing to shed prejudices and ignore stereotypes (this one seems to be the most difficult for most people--re: "It's even called the Reign of Terror--how can you defend it?")
2. Not to be a complete cynic
3. To actually share its ideals (obviously, if you're a royalist, there's something wrong if you like the Revolution).

One would think think that this last one wouldn't be so complicated, but it seems there are fewer republicans in our "republics" and fewer democrats in our "democracies" than we'd like to believe. -__-;;

(Oh, Ancient Rome. I find it so interesting, but like you I want to strangle 99% of the Romans. Gah. >__>)

You're very welcome. :D