See Tibulle Hamont, Dupleix, d’après sa correspondance inédite (Paris, 1881); H. Castonnet, Dupleix, ses expéditions et ses projets (Paris, 1888) and La Chute de Dupleix (Angers, 1888); G.B. Malleson, Dupleix (Rulers of India series, 1890); and E. Guérin, Dupleix (1908).
DUPONT, PIERRE (1821-1870), French song-writer, the son of a blacksmith, was born at Lyons on the 23rd of April 1821. His parents both died before he was five years old, and he was brought up in the country by his godfather, a village priest. He was educated at the seminary of L’Argentière, and was afterwards apprenticed to a notary at Lyons. In 1839 he found his way to Paris, and some of his poems were inserted in the Gazette de France and the Quotidienne. Two years later he was saved from the conscription and enabled to publish his first volume—Les Deux Anges—through the exertions of a kinsman and of Pierre Lebrun. In 1842 he received a prize from the Academy, and worked for some time on the official dictionary. Gounod’s appreciation of his peasant song, J’ai deux grands bœufs dans mon étable (1846), settled his vocation as a song-writer. He had no theoretical knowledge of music, but he composed both the words and the melodies of his songs, the two processes being generally simultaneous. He himself remained so innocent of musical knowledge that he had to engage Ernest Reyer to write down his airs. He sang his own songs, as they were composed, at the workmen’s concerts in the Salle de la Fraternité du Faubourg Saint-Denis; the public performance of his famous Le Pain was forbidden; Le Chant des ouvriers was even more popular; and in 1851 he paid the penalty of having become the poet laureate of the socialistic aspirations of the time by being condemned to seven years of exile from France. The sentence was cancelled, and the poet withdrew for a time from participation in politics. He died at Lyons, where his later years were spent, on the 24th of July 1870. His songs have appeared in various forms—Chants et chansons (3 vols., with music, 1852-1854), Chants et poésies (7th edition, 1862), &c. Among the best-known are Le Braconnier, Le Tisserand, La Vache blanche, La Chanson du blé, but many others might be mentioned of equal spontaneity and charm. His later works have not the same merit.
See also Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, iv.; Ch. Baudelaire, Notice sur P. Dupont (1849); Déchaut, Biographie de Pierre Dupont (1871); and Ch. Lenient, Poésie patriotique en France (1889), ii. 352 et seq.
DUPONT DE L’ÉTANG, PIERRE ANTOINE, Count (1765-1840), French general, first saw active service as a member of Maillebois’ legion in Holland, and in 1791 was on the staff of the Army of the North under Dillon. He distinguished himself at Valmy, and in the fighting around Menin in 1793 he forced an Austrian regiment to surrender. Promoted general of brigade for this feat, he soon received further advancement from Carnot, who recognized his abilities. In 1797 he became general of division. The rise of Napoleon, whom he warmly supported in the coup d’état of 18th Brumaire, brought him further opportunities. In the campaign of 1800 he was chief of the staff to Berthier, the nominal commander of the “Army of Reserve of the Alps”, which won the battle of Marengo. After the battle he sustained a brilliant combat, against greatly superior forces, at Pozzolo. In the campaign on the Danube in 1805, as the leader of one of Ney’s divisions, he earned further distinction, especially at the action of Albeck-Haslach, in which he prevented the escape of the Austrians from Ulm, and so contributed most effectively to the isolation and subsequent capture of Mack and his whole army (see [Napoleonic Campaigns]). At Friedland he won further fame. With a record such as but few of Napoleon’s divisional commanders possessed, he entered Spain in 1808 at the head of a corps. After the occupation of Madrid, Dupont, newly created count by Napoleon, was sent to subdue Andalusia. After a few initial successes he had to retire on the passes of the Sierra Morena. Pursued and cut off by the Spanish army under Castaños, his corps was defeated and he felt himself constrained to capitulate (Baylen, 19th-23rd July; see [Peninsular War]). The disgrace which fell upon the general was not entirely merited. His troops were for the most part raw levies, and ill-luck contributed materially to the catastrophe, but, after his return to France, Dupont was sent before a court-martial, deprived of his rank and title, and imprisoned from 1812 to 1814. Released only by the fall of Napoleon, he was employed by Louis XVIII. in a military command, which he lost on the return of Napoleon. But the Second Restoration saw him restored to the army, and appointed a member of the conseil privé of Louis XVIII. From 1815 to 1830 he was deputy for the Charente. He lived in retirement from 1832 till his death in 1840. Amongst the writings Dupont left are some poems, including L’Art de la guerre (1838), and verse translations from Horace (1836), and the following military works: Opinion sur le nouveau mode de recrutement (1818), Lettres sur l’Espagne en 1808 (1823), Lettre sur la campagne d’Autriche (1826). At the time of his death he was on the point of publishing his memoirs.
See Lieut.-Col. Titeux, Le Général Dupont: une erreur historique (Paris, 1903).
DUPONT DE L’EURE, JACQUES CHARLES (1767-1855), French lawyer and statesman, was born at Neubourg (Eure), in Normandy, on the 27th of February 1767. In 1789 he was an advocate at the parlement of Normandy. During the republic and the empire he filled successively judicial offices at Louviers, Rouen and Evreux. He had adopted the principles of the Revolution, and in 1798 he commenced his political life as a member of the Council of Five Hundred. In 1813 he became a member of the Corps Legislatif. During the Hundred Days he was vice-president of the chamber of deputies, and when the allied armies entered Paris he drew up the declaration in which the chamber asserted the necessity of maintaining the principles of government that had been established at the Revolution. He was chosen one of the commissioners to negotiate with the allied sovereigns. From 1817 till 1849 he was uninterruptedly a member of the chamber of deputies, and he acted consistently with the liberal opposition, of which at more than one crisis he was the virtual leader. For a few months in 1830 he held office as minister of justice, but, finding himself out of harmony with his colleagues, he resigned before the close of the year and resumed his place in the opposition. At the revolution of 1848 Dupont de l’Eure was made president of the provisional assembly as being its oldest member. In the following year, having failed to secure his re-election to the chamber, he retired into private life. He died in 1855. The consistent firmness with which he adhered to the cause of constitutional liberalism during the many changes of his times gained him the highest respect of his countrymen, by whom he was styled the Aristides of the French tribune.