Portrait of Eugène Sue the dandy The construction of an image and its ideological motivations

Eugène Sue became a celebrity with the publication of the Mystères de Paris and the Juif-errant in the 1840s. He inspired numerous rumors that were intended to discredit both his activities as a writer of serial fiction and his political positions favoring socialist currents of thought. His opponents endeavored to portray the novelist as a dandy who was a false and opportunistic convert to socialism. This article returns to the sources of the legends.