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

respectively. However, this period did not last long, and C-A. Dupin was again persecuted, not as a moderate but because he had supported the Clamecy terrorists. According to Baron (1978), this is an obscure time in his life. It is not known whether he spent it at Clamecy or whether he was appointed a judge in Varzy at the district tribunal a month before 9 thermidor (27 July 1794)² only to lose his post during the thermidor reaction.³ It may be that he stayed at home with his wife. In any case, on 3 floréal an 111 (22 April 1795), a district representative arrived in Varzy to proceed with the disarmament of the Jacobin extremists, Dupin among them, ‘for having thrown himself in with the terrorists, and obstinately preached their principles after coming out of Pressures’ (Baron 1978). The municipal authorities declared that Dupin had not been seen in Varzy since 9 thermidor.

During the Directoire period, things settled down for C. A. Dupin, who assumed new posts. He was appointed government commissaire at the Clamecy tribunal, and the following year, government commissaire in the central administration of the Nièvre. In year VIII (1800), the Nièvre department elected him by 95 of 115 votes as député du Conseil des cinq-cents,⁴ an assembly which was dissolved shortly afterwards as a result of Bonaparte’s coup d’état. C.-A. Dupin became a member of the Corps législative in 1800, and then he was appointed a delegate to the General Inspection of the Gendarmerie. In 1814, after Waterloo, he was the public prosecutor and then sous-préfet of Clamecy (2 August 1815). He made his mark in that post, according to Thuillier, who stated, ‘The préfets received poor support from the sous-préfets between 1815 and 1830. Apart from Dupin père, who was very competent, … the conseillers de préfecture and the préfets seem to have been nondescript administrators’ (1976, 93). This was Baron Dupin’s father.

2.3. The Eldest Son, André-Marie-Jean-Jacques Dupin, ‘Dupin aîné’ (1783–1865)

The eldest son of Charles-André Dupin remains indisputably the best known of the three Dupin sons. It was his statue that was raised in their