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Éléonore Duplay
Éléonore Duplay was the daughter of the carpenter Maurice Duplay, in whose house Maximilien Robespierre lodged as a tenant. She was widely regarded as the Incorruptible’s companion, though whether their bond was truly romantic remains uncertain to this day. Her sister Élisabeth, married to a deputy of the Convention, maintained that Éléonore had been promised to Robespierre. Yet in Paris, people – discreetly, of course – made light of the connection between the young woman and the reserved tribune, whose speeches constantly exalted virtue. After the fall of 9 Thermidor, Éléonore was arrested, but released several months later, as no crime could be established against her. She survived Robespierre by nearly forty years, never married, and wore black until her death. In the memory of many, she remained Robespierre’s widow. Her grave can still be visited today at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
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1768 - 1832
- 1768 · Born in Paris as the first child of Maurice and Françoise Éléonore Duplay.
- September 1791 · Maximilien Robespierre becomes a lodger in her father's house on Rue Saint-Honoré.
- July 28, 1794 · After Robespierre’s execution, Éléonore is arrested along with her mother and sister. They are taken to Sainte-Pélagie prison.
- July 29, 1794 · Françoise-Éléonore Duplay, Éléonore’s mother, takes her own life in her prison cell.
- December 8, 1794 · Éléonore and her sister are released.
- May 6, 1795 · Maurice Duplay is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal. Éléonore henceforth runs the household of her widowed father.
- June 30, 1820 · Her father dies. In a notarial document, Éléonore is described as the
custodian
of the seals of the household at 29 rue de Harlay ( Île de la Cité), where the Duplays lived at the end. The inventory lists numerous paintings. It is unknown whether any of them were works by Éléonore. - 1830 · Towards the end of her life, Éléonore is a living myth for the republicans of the early 19th century. However, she continues to live in seclusion and also declines the offer of a meeting with the former revolutionary Filippo Buonarroti.
- July 26, 1832 · Dies in Paris.
Quotes
There was so much kindness in her rare smile, so much melancholy on her open brow, so much pride in her eagle gaze, so much feeling in her usual expressions, and such frank roughness in her spontaneous remarks, that one had either to love her or to hate her.
Albertine Clément-Emery, with whom Éléonore took painting lessons.
She would die an old maid, bearing her voluntary childlessness as a sacrifice to the shadow of that man always surrounded by the melancholy of sterility.
Friedrich Sieburg, 1935
For Éléonore Duplay, friend of Maximilien Robespierre
Inscription on a memorial plaque by the Association Maximilien Robespierre at Éléonore’s grave, July 2003 (Thermidor 211)
An Evening at the Duplay House
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