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Cause célèbre

A ( , ; pl. causes célèbres, pronounced like the singular) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning, and heated public debate. The term is sometimes used positively for celebrated legal cases for their precedent value (each locus classicus or "case-in-point") and more often negatively for infamous ones, whether for scale, outrage, scandal, or conspiracy theories. The term is a French phrase in common usage in English. Since it has been fully adopted into English and is included unitalicized in English dictionaries, it is not normally italicized despite its French origin.

It has been noted that the public attention given to a particular case or event can obscure the facts rather than clarify them. As John Humffreys Parry states, "The true story of many a cause célèbre is never made manifest in the evidence given or in the advocates' orations, but might be recovered from these old papers when the dust of ages has rendered them immune from scandal".

Etymology

The term derives from the title of the collection of reports of well-known French court decisions from the 17th and 18th centuries. The first series, consisting of 22 volumes, was compiled by François Gayot de Pitaval and the second series of 15 volumes (known as ) by Nicolas-Toussaint Des Essarts. It was published in 37 volumes in 1763. Literally, means "celebrated case" or "famous case" in French. It came into much more common usage after the wrongful 1894 conviction of Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus for espionage. The conviction caused widespread controversy and scandal over antisemitism in France, deeply divided French society, and led to international attention to the situation. According to John F. Neville:

Initially, cause célèbre specifically referred to a legal case which attracted public notoriety, but its meaning was subsequently extended to include any famous or notorious person, thing, or event. It is also wrongly used in the sense of any famous cause or ideal.

Examples

Fictional examples

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