A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Desmoulins, Lucille
DESMOULINS, LUCILLE,
Was born in Paris, in 1771. Her father was a clerk of the finances, and her mother one of the most beautiful women of the age. Lucille, whose maiden name was Duplessis, was carefully educated. She formed an attachment, when very young, to Camille Desmoulins, a young man of great talent, who became one of the first leaders and victims of the revolution. They were married in 1790. Camille Desmoulins, after having made himself conspicuous by his speeches in favour of the death of Louis the Sixteenth, was appointed a member of the Convention, and for some time was very much followed. But as his feelings gradually changed from hatred against the aristocrats to pity for the innocent victims of the people's fury, he lost his popularity, was denounced, and imprisoned. Lucille exerted herself to the utmost to save him, and wandered continually around his prison, trying to rouse the people in his favour; but in vain. He was guillotined, and she was tried and condemned for having endeavoured to rescue him. She was calm, and even cheerful, during her hasty trial; and dressing herself with the greatest care, she entered the fatal cart, and, in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, ascended the scaffold with the most perfect serenity. She was executed in 1794, at the age of twenty-three.