chronique scandaleuse

plural chroniques scandaleuses

1. A journalistic account of a love affair, crime, or other scandalous event.

   The chroniques scandaleuses were printed versions of these manuscript news sheets. They stood half way in the evolutionary process by which archaic rumor mongering developed into popular journalism.

   1976, Robert Darnton with Bernhard Fabian and Roy McKeen Wiles, edited by Paul J. Korshin, The Widening Circle: Essays on the Circulation of Literature in Eighteenth-century Europe [Haney Foundation series; 20], Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 56

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   [M]y antiquarian looked at me with a knowing eye, […] and lowering his voice into a confidential whisper (although not a soul was to be seen within half a mile around), communicated to me a mass of intelligence so much bordering on the nature of a chronique scandaleuse, that I found it necessary to stop his current of abuse by a peremptory order […]

   1815, Lewis Engelbach, Naples and the Campagna Felice. In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Friend in England, in 1802, London: R[udolph] Ackermann, 101, Strand, →OCLC, page 354

   Yet I have at last induced her to withdraw her opposition, by remarking, with a grave air, how glad the embassies are, when there is a dearth of political news, to lay hold of a tale of this kind and to transmit it to their respective courts, as a chronique scandaleuse. The duchess admitted this, and at last, though with a very bad grace, consented to the performance of the opera.

   1859 July, E. M. Swann, “Charlotte Fandauer's Ghost. From the German of Hauff.”, in The New Monthly Magazine, volume 116, number CCCCLXIII, London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly, →OCLC, page 339

   Lobbying and votes on the one hand, and concessions on the other might be written into a chronique scandaleuse of Canadian history. Railways and politics have, in fact, never been completely dissociated in Canada […]

   1964, G[eorge] P[arkin] de T[wenebroker] Glazebrook, A History of Transportation in Canada. Volume II, National Economy: 1867–1936 [The Carleton Library; 12], volume II, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, →OCLC, page 215

   Our lack of information [about Agrippina the Younger] has led to wild speculations that her memoirs were a ‘chronique scandaleuse’, full of malice and slander written to blacken the reputation of her enemies. […] Obviously, the belief that they were a ‘chronique scandaleuse’, which is not in keeping with the character of commentarii, seems inspired by the prejudice that this is the kind of work women were apt to write rather than by any evidence.

   1999, Emily A[nn] Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Élite from Cornelia to Julia Domna, London: Routledge, →ISBN, page 187

   English anti-aristocratic pornography was also deeply rooted in a French tradition, that of the chroniques scandaleuses. These salacious little stories about the court at Versailles delighted English readers.

   2008, Robert Muchembled, translated by Jean Birrell, Orgasm and the West: A History of Pleasure from the 16th Century to the Present, Cambridge: Polity, →ISBN, page 125