(1846). See notices of his life (1818) by Silvestre and Baron de Gerando; also Schelle, Du Pont de Nemours et l’école physiocratique (1888).
DUPORT, ADRIEN (1759–1798), French politician, was born in Paris. He became an influential advocate in the parlement, becoming prominent in opposition to the ministers Calonne and Loménie de Brienne. Elected in 1789 to the states-general by the noblesse of Paris, he soon revealed a remarkable eloquence. A learned jurist, he contributed during the Constituent Assembly to the organization of the judiciary of France. His report of the 29th of March 1790 is especially notable. In it he advocated trial by jury; but he was unable to obtain the jury system in civil cases. Duport had formed with Barnave and Alexandre de Lameth a group known as the “triumvirate,” which was popular at first. But after the flight of the king to Varennes, Duport sought to defend him; as member of the commission charged to question the king, he tried to excuse him, and on the 14th of July 1791 he opposed the formal accusation. He was thus led to separate himself from the Jacobins and to join the Feuillant party. After the Constituent Assembly he became president of the criminal tribunal of Paris, but was arrested during the insurrection of the 10th of August 1792. He escaped, thanks probably to the complicity of Danton, returned to France after the 9th of Thermidor of the year II., left it in exile again after the republican coup d’état of the 18th of Fructidor of the year V., and died at Appenzell in Switzerland in 1798.
See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (2nd ed., Paris, 1905, 8vo).
DUPORT, JAMES (1606–1679), English classical scholar, was born at Cambridge. His father, John Duport, who was descended from an old Norman family (the Du Ports of Caen, who settled in Leicestershire during the reign of Henry IV.), was master of Jesus College. The son was educated at Westminster and at Trinity College, where he became fellow and subsequently vicemaster. In 1639 he was appointed regius professor of Greek, in 1664 dean of Peterborough, and in 1668 master of Magdalene College. He died at Peterborough on the 17th of July 1679. Throughout the troublous times of the Civil War, in spite of the loss of his clerical offices and eventually of his professorship, Duport quietly continued his lectures. He is best known by his Homeri gnomologia (1660), a collection of all the aphorisms, maxims and remarkable opinions in the Iliad and Odyssey, illustrated by quotations from the Bible and classical literature. His other published works chiefly consist of translations (from the Bible and Prayer Book into Greek) and short original poems, collected under the title of Horae subsecivae or Stromata. They include congratulatory odes (inscribed to the king); funeral odes; carmina comitialia (tripos verses on different theses maintained in the schools, remarkable for their philosophical and metaphysical knowledge); sacred epigrams; and three books of miscellaneous poems (Sylvae). The character of Duport’s work is not such as to appeal to modern scholars, but he deserves the credit of having done much to keep alive the study of classical literature in his day.
The chief authority for the life of Duport is J. H. Monk’s “Memoir” (1825); see also Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. (1908), ii. 349.
DÜPPEL, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, opposite the town of Sonderburg (on the island of Alsen). (Pop. 600.) The position of Düppel, forming as it does a bridge-head for the defenders of the island of Alsen, played a conspicuous part in the wars between Denmark and the Germans. On the 28th of May 1848 the German federal troops were there defeated by the Danes under General Hedemann, and a second battle was fought on the 6th of June 1848. On the 13th of April 1849 an indecisive battle was fought between the federal troops under von Prittwitz and the Danes under von Bulow. The most important event in the military history of Düppel was, however, the siege by the Prussians of the Danish position in 1864. The flanks of the defenders’ line rested upon the Alsen Sund and the sea, and it was strengthened by ten redoubts. A second line of trenches with lunettes at intervals was constructed behind the front attacked, and a small réduit opposite Sonderburg to cover the bridges between Alsen and the mainland. The Prussian siege corps was commanded by Prince Frederick Charles (headquarters, Düppel village), and after three weeks’ skirmishing a regular siege was begun, the batteries being opened on the 15th of March. The first parallel was completed fifteen days later, the front of attack being redoubts II. to VI., forming the centre of the Danish entrenchments on the road Düppel-Sonderburg. The siege was pushed rapidly from the first parallel and the assault delivered on the 18th of April, against the redoubts I. to VI., each redoubt being attacked by a separate column. The whole line was carried after a brief but severe conflict, and the Prussians had penetrated to and captured the réduit opposite Sonderburg by 2 p.m. The loss of the Danes, half of whose forces were not engaged, included 1800 killed and wounded and 3400 prisoners. This operation was followed by the daring passage of the Alsen Sund, effected by the Prussians in boats almost under the guns of the Danish war-ships, and resulting in the capture of the whole island of Alsen (June 29th, 1864). After being still further strengthened and linked with similar defences at Sonderburg, the Düppel entrenchments were abandoned in 1881 in favour of landward fortifications around Kiel.
See R. Neumann, Über den Angriff der Düppeler Schanzen in der Zeit vom 15. März bis 18. April 1864 (Berlin, 1865); and Der deutsch-dänische Krieg 1864, published by the Prussian General Staff (Berlin, 1887).
DU PRAT, ANTOINE (1463–1535), chancellor of France and cardinal, was born at Issoire on the 17th of January 1463. He began life as a lawyer, and rose rapidly in the legal hierarchy owing to the influence of his cousin Antoine Bohier, cardinal archbishop of Bourges. The first office which he held was that of lieutenant-general in the bailliage of Montferrand; in 1507 he became first president of the parlement of Paris. Louise of Savoy had employed him as her adviser in her affairs, and had made him tutor to her son. When Francis I. ascended the throne he made Du Prat chancellor of France, in which capacity he played an important part in the government. It was he who negotiated with Leo X. concerning the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction and the establishment of a concordat. After the meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520) he was engaged in unsuccessful negotiations with Wolsey. During the regency of Louise of Savoy he, together with Florimond Robertet, was at the head of affairs. He took an active part in the suit brought by Louise of Savoy against the Constable de Bourbon, and in 1532 completed the work of uniting Brittany to France. After the death of his wife in 1507 Du Prat had taken orders; he received the bishoprics of Valence, Die, Meaux and Albi, and the archbishopric of Sens (1525); in 1527 he became cardinal, and in 1530 papal legate. He was a determined adversary of the Reformation. He died on the 9th of July 1535.
See the marquis Du Prat, Vie d’Antoine Du Prat (Paris, 1857).
DUPRÉ, JULES (1812–1889), French painter, was one of the chief members of the Barbizon group of romantic landscape painters. If Corot stands for the lyric and Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré is the exponent of her tragic and dramatic aspects. He was the son of a porcelain manufacturer, and started his career in his father’s works, whence he went to his uncle’s china factory at Sèvres. After studying for some time under Diébold, a painter of clock faces, he had to pass through a short period of privation, until he attracted the attention of a wealthy patron, who came to his studio and bought all the studies on the walls at the price demanded by the artist—20 francs apiece. Dupré exhibited first at the Salon in 1831, and three years later was awarded a second-class medal. In the same year he came to England, where he was deeply impressed by the genius of Constable. From him he learnt how to express movement in nature; and the district of Southampton and Plymouth, with its wide, unbroken expanses of water, sky and ground, gave him good opportunities for studying the tempestuous motion of storm-clouds and the movement of foliage driven by the wind. He received the cross of the Legion of Honour in 1848. Dupré’s colour is sonorous and resonant; the subjects for which he showed marked preference are dramatic
