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Pierre-Gaeton Dupont

Paris 1760 – 1817 English, French Main: Paris Other: London jurist translator Pierre Gaëton Dupont [duponpierr024616] (wikidata)

Contributions

  1. Réflexions sur la Révolution de France, et sur les procédés de certaines sociétés à Londres, relatifs à cet événement: En forme d'une lettre, qui avoit dû être envoyée d'abord à un jeune homme, à Paris translation translator

Knows

Notes

After becoming a conseiller for the Paris Parlement, Dupont was sent to England in 1788 or 1789 to study the organisation of juries. Here he met Burke, probably through his son Richard, who was practising law in London around this time.

Burke's 'Reflections' came out 1 Nov 1790, and Dupont's translation was ready to print by 29 Nov, having already taken on board revisions from the 3rd edition, which had come out on 20 Nov. According to Dupont's letters, 2500 copies of his translation were sold in two days, and attempts to pirate his translation were thwarted by the protection of the mayor Jean-Sylvain Bailly. By the end of 1791, estimates suggest that 19,000 English and 13,000 French copies had been sold. One of Burke's replies to Dupont was printed as an appendix to the 2nd Paris edition.

The translation received a fair amount of criticism, including from Burke's friend, the former Comptroller-General, Charles-Alexandre Calonne, who admitted that a good translation would be difficult.

For more on the genesis of Dupont's translation, see Hans A, Schmitt & John C. Weston, Jr., 'Ten Letters to Edmund Burke from the French Translator of the Reflections on the Revolution in France', Journal of Modern History, vol.24, no.4 (Dec 1952).