André Marie Jean Jacques Dupin

Who was André Marie Jean Jacques Dupin?

André Marie Jean Jacques Dupin, commonly called Dupin the Elder, was a French advocate, president of the chamber of deputies and of the Legislative Assembly.

Dupin was born at Varzy, in the Nièvre département, in France. He was educated by his father, who was a lawyer of eminence, and at an early age he became principal clerk of an attorney at Paris. On the establishment of the Académie de Legislation he entered it as pupil from Nièvre. In 1800 he was made advocate, and in 1802, when the schools of law were opened, he received successively the degrees of licentiate and doctor from the new faculty. He was in 1810 an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of law at Paris, and in 1811 he also failed to obtain the office of advocate-general at the Court of Cassation. About this time he was added to the commission charged with the classification of the laws of the empire, and, after the interruption caused by the events of 1814 and 1815, was charged with the sole care of that great work. When he entered the chamber of deputies in 1815 he at once took an active part in the debates as a member of the Liberal Opposition, and strenuously opposed the election of the son of Napoleon as emperor after his father's abdication.