Charles Dupin (1784–1873) and His Influence on France: The Contri ...

Still very young, Dupin was thus completing the first chapter of his life; he had received a somewhat Spartan education but had greatly benefited from his intellectual family background. He would reach the heights with his sharp intelligence, eclectic but methodical mind, and enormous capacity for work. Like his older brother, he was not without his critics, mainly for his support for the Second Empire. However, at the time of the Restoration, he took a great risk to defend Lazare Carnot and his eldest son, Sadi Carnot (1796–1832). Lazare Carnot was popularly known as the ‘organizer of victory’. In 1793, when France was suffering invasion and was threatened on all sides, he organized mass mobilization to save his country. The phrase was coined by the politician Jean-Denis Lanjuinais and soon taken up by the people. Sadi Carnot, a staunch republican, had joined Napoleon during the Hundred Days campaign (for more on Sadi Carnot, see Fox 1978). Lazare Carnot and Jean-Denis Lanjuinais, a lawyer who had fought for the rights of the tiers état (the third estate, or the common people), would, together with Dupin, attack the reactionary ministry of Villèle in 1827 (see chapter 12.5).

Dupin also publicly defended his guide and mentor Gaspard Monge against the attacks of the new Restoration administration in 1815. His devotion to Monge and his desire to be the great geometer’s ‘spiritual son’ were described by Belhoste, a professor of the history of science at the University of Paris (Christen and Vatin 2009, 87). Lazare Carnot and Monge were the only two members of the first class of the Institut to be excluded from the first class of the Institut, and Dupin’s support for them became public. Lazare Carnot insisted that Dupin should not publish the defence he had made of him to avoid serious repercussions.