Abstract
1he Chevalier d'Eon first honed his skills of media manipulation in his quarrel with the French ambassador to London, the Comte de Guerchy, in 1763-1764. He did so with such success that, by the end of their spat, d'Eon had become a household name among Europe's elite, while his allegations that Guerchy had conspired to kidnap and murder him were widely accepted by the British public and had given rise to a criminal prosecution against the ambassador. During the course of the dispute and his vitriolic press campaign against Guerchy, d'Eon learned to fabricate evidence and to mould his public identity. Thus the Guerchy affair laid the groundwork for d'Eon's later celebrity and manipulation of perceptions of his gender. It also provides a case study in the construction of celebrity status in the later eighteenth century.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds: Gender, Espionage and Politics in the Eighteenth Century |
Editors | Simon Burrows, Jonathan Conlin, Russell Goulbourne, Valerie Mainz |
Place of Publication | U.K. |
Publisher | Continuum |
Pages | 13-23 |
Number of pages | 11 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780826422781 |
Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- British history
- history of journalism
- French history
- celebrity
- eighteenth century