Lucile Duplessis
Anne Lucile Philippe Laridon Duplessis (18 January 1770 in Paris – 13 April 1794) was the wife of the French revolutionary and journalist Camille Desmoulins. She was the daughter of Claude Etienne Laridon Duplessis, an official of the French Treasury, and Anne (sometimes given as Annette) Françoise Marie Boisdeveix. Her sister, Adèle Duplessis, was briefly engaged to Maximilien Robespierre.
She married Camille Desmoulins 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's only child, Horace Camille, was born July 6, 1792. Robespierre stood as his godfather.
On April 5, 1794, Lucile Desmoulins was arrested on charges that she had conspired to free her husband (then imprisoned in the Luxembourg while on trial with Georges Danton). Camille Desmoulins was executed on the same day Lucile was arrested, and 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."
Following the deaths of his parents, Horace Camille Desmoulins was raised by Lucile's mother and sister. He migrated to Haiti in 1817, and died there in 1825.
Appreciation
Lucile Desmoulins is female heroine of Georg Büchners play Danton's Death
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
- Edith 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' La Révolution française, 1989
References
- 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.
She appears prominently in A Place of Greater Safety (1993) by Hilary Mantel.