L'affaire Vrain-Denis Lucas - le faussaire aux 27 000 lettres

1851

Lucas met the mathematician Michel Chasles in 1851 and over eighteen years sold him more than 27,000 forged letters attributed to Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc and Mary Magdalene, all written in French, all flattering to France. Chasles presented forged Pascal-Newton correspondence to the Académie des Sciences in 1867 as proof Pascal had anticipated universal gravitation. In February 1870 the Tribunal correctionnel de Paris sentenced Lucas to two years.