Lucile Desmoulins
Anne-Lucile-Philippe Desmoulins, born Laridon-Duplessis (18 January 1770 in Paris – 13 April 1794) was a French diarist during the French Revolution and married to the revolutionary Camille Desmoulins.
Life
Lucile Duplessis Desmoulins was the daughter of Claude-Etienne Laridon-Duplessis, an official of the French Treasury, and Anne-Françoise-Marie Boisdeveix. Some sources have claimed that her younger sister, Adèle Duplessis, born in 1774, was briefly engaged to Maximilien Robespierre.
Though she would eventually marry Camille Desmoulins, the two first met when Lucile was much younger, and Camille was an admirer of her mother. Lucile was headstrong, and when she fell in love with Camille, ten years her senior, her father refused the marriage. Finally, Lucile’s father agreed, and the couple was married on December 29, 1790, at the Church of Saint Sulpice in Paris. Signatories to their marriage included Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, Jacques Pierre Brissot, and Maximilien Robespierre. The Desmoulins' only child, Horace Camille, was born July 6, 1792.
In one of her journals, Lucile talks about what happened on the Insurrection of 10 August 1792.[2]
"August 9th, 1792. What will become of us? I can endure no more. Camille, O my poor Camille, what will become of you? O God, if it be true that thou hast existence, save the men who are worthy of Thee. We want to be free. O God, the cost of it! As a climax to my misery, courage abandons me."[3]
On April 5, 1794, Lucile Desmoulins was arrested on charges that she had conspired to free her husband (then imprisoned in the Conciergerie while on trial with Georges-Jacques Danton) and for plotting the ruin of the republic.[4] Camille learned of his young wife’s arrest before he and his fellow victims were taken to the guillotine on the afternoon of April 5, 1794; Camille died knowing that Lucile, too, was likely to be executed. Indeed, Lucile followed him to the guillotine on April 13, 1794. She is reported to have remarked, while awaiting her execution, "They have assassinated the best of men. If I did not hate them for that, I should bless them for the service they have done me this day."[5]
Lucile’s father passed away within the year of 1794. Horace Camille Desmoulins, not yet two years old, was raised by Lucile's mother and sister. He migrated to Haiti in 1817, married, and had four children. Horace died of yellow fever in Jacmel, near the southern coast of Haiti, in 1825. His birth date is stated incorrectly on his grave marker. [6]
Appreciation
Lucile Desmoulins is the heroine of Georg Büchner's play Danton's Death. She appears prominently in A Place of Greater Safety (1993) by Hilary Mantel.
Lucile Desmoulins has been played in movies by:
- Charlotte Ander in Dimitri Buchowetzki's Danton, 1921
- Francine Mussey in Abel Gance's Napoleon, 1927
- Gemma Jones in teleplay Poor Bitos, 1965
- Édith Scob in Claude Barma's La mort de Danton, 1970
- Claude Jade in Jean-Paul Carrères La Passion de Camille et Lucile Desmoulins, 1978
- Angela Winkler in Andrzej Wajda's Danton, 1982
- Marie Bunel in Robert Enrico's La Révolution française, 1989
She is the subject of the fourth movement of composer Kate Soper's piece "Voices from the Killing Jar", 2012.[7]
References
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Guillotine, Madame (2011-03-08). "International Women's Day – Lucile Desmoulins". Madame Guillotine. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
- ^ "From the journal of Lucile Desmoulins, wife of the..." bunniesandbeheadings. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 716.
- ^ Mallock, Daniel (2016-02-02). Agony and Eloquence: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and a World of Revolution. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ISBN 9781634508322.
- ^ "entry for Horace Desmoulins". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 2019-05-31.
- ^ Soper, Kate (2017). Voices from the Killing Jar (Thesis). Columbia University. doi:10.7916/D8QV3TJD.
Further reading
- Claretie, Jules. Camille Desmoulins and His Wife: Passages from the History of the Dantonists. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1876.
- Methley, Violet. Camille Desmoulins: A Biography. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1915.
