Count Armand Alexandre de Blanquet du Chayla (25 March 1885 – 1945) was a French

nobleman Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteris ...

who converted to Russian Orthodoxy. He is chiefly remembered for giving crucial evidence and/or testimony for the

prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

at the

Berne Trial The Berne Trial (also known under the name of "Zionistenprozess") was a famous court case in Berne, Switzerland which took place between 1933 and 1935. Two organisations, the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities () and the Bernese Jewish Commu ...

in 1935 against the notorious

Protocols of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...

. Du Chayla had been a journalist at the time of the 1913 blood-libel trial of Mendel Beilis and had written in support of the accusation. At Berne he insisted on payment of 4,000 Swiss francs for his testimony, which the plaintiffs found difficulty raising. Michael Hagemeister wrote that du Chayla's testimony was full of factual errors and inconsistencies, but unfortunately still taints the historiography of the Protocols.

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