Denis Lucas Song Lyrics

Who is Denis Lucas?

Denis Vrain-Lucas (December 1, 1816 – April 11, 1881) was a French forger who sold counterfeit letters and other documents to French manuscript collectors. He even wrote purported letters from biblical figures in French. Vrain-Lucas was trained as a law clerk, but by 1854 he had begun to forge historical documents, especially letters. He began by using writing material and self-made inks from the appropriate period and forged mainly documents from French authors. He collected historical details from the Imperial library. As his forgeries became more readily accepted, he began to produce letters from historical figures. In 1861 Vrain-Lucas approached French mathematician and collector Michel Chasles and sold him forged letters of Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal. In one of them Pascal supposedly claimed that he had discovered the laws of gravity before Newton. Since this would have meant that a Frenchman had stated these laws before an Englishman, Chasles accepted the lett...