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

hometown of Varzy, and it is he who has aroused the most public interest and the attention of authors. His professional life in the law and politics was certainly dynamic, and his career may be more easily understood than the scientific activities of his brother Charles. Commonly known as ‘Dupin aîné’, Charles-André was a prestigious lawyer and wrote some hundred books on the law. As a magistrate, he was a prosecutor at the court of appeal for almost thirty years. Elected député at the end of the Restoration period, he had been a member of the private council of the Duc d’Orléans, the future King Louis-Philippe, since 1820; the king’s accession to the throne was greatly assisted by Dupin aîné. In 1827, he was reelected député for the Nièvre, and so he remained without interruption until 1851. He presided over the Assemblée from 1832 to 1840 and from 1849 to 1851. Rallying belatedly to the Empire, he resumed his duties as a prosecutor in 1857 and continued in this role until his death. He was a member of the Académie française, the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, and grand cordon of the Légion d’honneur. During his reign, Dupin aîné was Louis-Philippe’s close adviser (see Perrin 1983, 44–55).

In his Mémoires (4 vols., 1855–1863), Dupin aîné spoke of the important role his father played in his education. He did not often attend the colleges of Clamecy and Varzy (which were, in any case, closed for several years during the Revolution), but his father concentrated on his eldest son’s education to the point of exhausting him. There is no doubt that this serious, basic education stood him in good stead throughout his long career. As for his career, he was a first clerk with a Paris lawyer, a doctor of laws at the age of twenty-three, and then he set himself up as a lawyer in the Latin Quarter of Paris. However, he was not unanimously admired. In 1848, Charles Robin wrote,