Publicity

Celebrity was a form of sociability as well as a form of publicity that took its modern form over the course of the long eighteenth century. It was related to, but distinct from, the experience of fame.

Jacques Necker, finance minister of France under the Old Regime (1777-1781) and then the revolution (1788-1790), was known for much more than his keen ability to mobilise credit. Thought to be an unwavering symbol of ministerial virtue by his supporters, and a fraudulent charlatan by his enemies, Necker well understood the importance of public opinion in affairs of state. Under the Old Regime, he worked hard to defend both his reputation and that of his ministry. But when the revolution came, Necker’s reputation took on a life of its own.This entry explores Necker’s changing image in revolutionary opinion to show how the revolution ultimately shifted the terms of public opinion as a form of political sociability in French politics.

Falling into a long tradition of violent gatherings such as the Tityre Tu, the Bugles, or the Damned Crew, a group of ‘gentlemen’ called the Mohocks was rumored to have terrorized London’s streets in the Spring of 1712. While little evidence exists for the Mohocks being an organized group with a shared motif of mischief-making, rumors nevertheless put the violent outbursts attributed to them into the context of a club-like structure, thereby creating a curious case of asocial sociability.