Léonard Mathurin Duphot (21 September 1769 – December 1797) was a French general and poet, whose ''Ode aux mânes des héros morts pour la liberté'' was highly fashionable at the time.

Life

Duphot was born in la Guillotière, a suburb of

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

, a stonemason's son. He joined the Vermandois regiment on 25 July 1785 aged 15, rising to sergeant on 25 March 1792, joining the French expedition to Savoy and being sent to Nice. He was a member of one of the national volunteer battalions created on the outbreak of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. He was made chef de bataillon adjudant-général in November 1794 and fought with distinction in several actions of the Italian campaign in 1796. He was often mentioned in dispatches by general Augereau. On 13 June 1795 he came off the list of active officers and in February 1796 he was drafted back into the army for home service, though he returned to Augereau and Italy in August 1796, fighting at Mantua, Rivoli and La Favorita. Bonaparte then put Duphot in charge of organising the troops of the

Cisalpine Republic The Cisalpine Republic ( it, Repubblica Cisalpina) was a sister republic of France in Northern Italy that existed from 1797 to 1799, with a second version until 1802. Creation After the Battle of Lodi in May 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte organized t ...

. He rose to

Général de brigade Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed to ...

in the armée d'Italie on 30 March 1797. He then went to Rome with the French ambassador

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

, where they both tried to incite a Republican revolt, especially by holding a Republican festival at Joseph's palace. This caused a riot and Duphot was fatally shot on December 28, 1797 by Papal State troops. On December 29, 1797, the 250th Roman Catholic Church

Pope Pius VI Pope Pius VI ( it, Pio VI; born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 25 December 171729 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in August 1799. Pius VI condemned the French Revoluti ...

moved quickly and sent a formal apology to the

French Directory The Directory (also called Directorate, ) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 2 November 1795 until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon, Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and r ...

for the death of Brig General Duphot. However, the apology was not accepted by the 1st Republic, and thus his death gave Bonaparte the pretext he needed to occupy Rome, abolish the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

and set up the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

- in '' Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène'', Napoleon said of him "he was a general of the greatest promise. He was virtue itself.". Duphot had been due to marry Joseph's sister-in-law

Désirée Clary Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary ( sv, Eugenia Bernhardina Desideria; 8 November 1777 – 17 December 1860) was Queen of Sweden and Norway from 5 February 1818 to 8 March 1844 as the wife of King Charles XIV John. Charles John was a former Fre ...

the day after his death - she eventually married

Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte sv, Karl Johan Baptist Julius , spouse = , issue = Oscar I of Sweden , house = Bernadotte , father = Henri Bernadotte , mother = Jeanne de Saint-Jean , birth_date = , birth_place = Pau, ...

, and became Queen of Sweden, when he became King Charles XIV John in 1818.

Sources

* Marie-Nicolas Bouillet and Alexis Chassang (dir.), "Léonard Duphot" in ''Dictionnaire universel d’histoire et de géographie'', 1878 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Duphot, Leonard 1769 births 1797 deaths Military personnel from Lyon French generals French military personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars French people murdered abroad Names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe