Chauvinism

Chauvinism, the French name for that exaggerated zeal for the military glory of one's nation, and that patriotic and somewhat frothy boastfulness which now in England is more commonly called jingoism (q.v.). The name "Chauvin" was popularly given to Napoleon I.'s old soldiers and enthusiastic admirers, and is said to have been derived from one of them, a certain Nicholas Chauvin, who was rendered conspicuous by his serious wounds as well as by his enthusiasm. But the name was brought into vogue by the Cocarde Tricolore, a vaudeville by the brothers Cogniard, which had a great success in Paris in 1831, owing partly to its allusions to the expedition to Algiers, where the scene was laid, and to the revolution of 1830. Chauvin is the name of one of the characters, who is first introduced as a raw recruit, whose diet of camel has disagreed with him, but whose subsequent strange adventures in a seraglio and patriotic devotion to the tricolour (the Napoleonic flag, just restored after the expulsion of Charles X.) helped to make the fortune of the piece.