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A Princely Ploy: Inside the Ruse of a French-Armenian Scammer
After proclaiming himself the direct descendant of a 12th-century Crusader king, the Armenian priest and educator Ambroise Calfa hit upon an ignoble scheme: grant knighthood to anyone willing to pay. Jennifer Manoukian recovers the cunning exploits of this forgotten 19th-century conman, whose initially honorable intentions quickly escalated into all-out fraud.
One such Armenian, the future writer Yervant Odian, worked as one of Calfa’s proofreaders for over a year and inadvertently became an eyewitness to the parade of hopefuls who came knocking on the door of Villa de Lusignan looking for knighthood. As a condition of his support, the newspaper did Calfa’s bidding, printing, for example, that the British government should end their occupation of Cyprus and return the island posthaste to Prince Guy de Lusignan, its rightful ruler. He indulged those who — fueled by Orientalist tropes and anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe — saw in him a Christian prince oppressed by a Muslim sultan, welcoming their calls for new crusades that would reclaim the region for Christendom and restore him to his throne.
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