Léonard Mathurin Duphot (21 September 1769 – 28 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 (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

, 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. 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 (; ) was a sister republic or a client state 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 two ...

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

Joseph Bonaparte Joseph Bonaparte (born Giuseppe di Buonaparte, ; ; ; 7 January 176828 July 1844) was a French statesman, lawyer, diplomat and older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. During the Napoleonic Wars, the latter made him King of Naples (1806–1808), an ...

, 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 (; born Count Angelo Onofrio Melchiorre Natale Giovanni Antonio called Giovanni Angelo or Giannangelo Braschi, 25 December 171729 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to hi ...

moved quickly and sent a formal apology to the

French Directory The Directory (also called Directorate; ) was the system of government established by the Constitution of the Year III, French Constitution of 1795. It takes its name from the committee of 5 men vested with executive power. The Directory gov ...

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 ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

and set up the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

- 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 (; 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 French general and founder of the House o ...

the day after his death - she eventually married Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, 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