Combien de Chimères! The French Lives of Nadir Shah

Accounts of Nadir Shah's spectacular rise from the son of a Turcoman herdsman to Emperor of Persia echoed in the reports that circulated in France starting in 1730 and sustaining interest throughout the eighteenth century. Several "ripped from the headlines" books—from histories to fictionalized memoirs—published in the decades following Nadir's conquests claimed different, European and Christian origins for this new Persian ruler. This article analyzes these accounts to show how they offer a dual French vision of the Orient, one domesticated by a renewed Christian ethos made possible by the transfer of European political and military know-how.