Dress Rehearsal for Dreyfus: The Duchesse de Berry, Simon Deutz & France’s First Antisemitic Affaire

Lecture Presented on January 23, 2022.
In 1832, the duchesse de Berry led a civil war to recapture the French throne for her 11-year-old son. She was betrayed to the government by her trusted confidant, Simon Deutz, the son of France’s chief rabbi, setting off the first outpouring of antisemitism in modern France. Maurice Samuels shows how this colorful but now forgotten historical event set the stage for the century of antisemitism to come.
Bio:
Maurice Samuels is the Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French at Yale University, where he directs the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism and chairs the Judaic Studies Program. A specialist of 19th-century literature and culture, he is the author of four books including The Betrayal of the Duchess.