Cause Célèbre, a convenient French term for a specially interesting and important legal trial, criminal or civil, such as the Douglas Cause (1769–71), the Dred Scott case in the United States as to the possession of a negro (1856), the Tichborne case (1871–74). There is a great French collection of Causes Célèbres et intéressantes (22 vols. 1737–45), by Gayot de Pitaval, with modern continuations. See TRIALS.
Cause Célèbre
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 3: Catarrh to Dion, p. 29
Source scan(s): p. 0038