The Gods Are Athirst

Les dieux ont soif · The Gods Are Athirst · published 1912 · ISBN 9782070381685

Anatole France — Anatole France (1844 – 1924) — France, writing in French. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921.

“in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament” — The Nobel Committee citation

About Anatole France

French writer, the son of a Paris bookseller, who grew up among stacks of second-hand books and kept all his life a classical, ironic, seemingly effortless prose. He was among the most forceful intellectuals to defend Dreyfus, and later moved decisively to the left in support of the socialist movement. His mild scepticism was aimed at every kind of certainty — religious, revolutionary, progressive — without ever curdling into malice.

How it came to be

France published the novel in 1912, after years of reading the sources of the Revolution and while the Third Republic was still arguing bitterly about the legacy of 1789. The title comes from Camille Desmoulins — "the gods are thirsty" — on the mounting executions. France was himself a man of the left, so the book is not a royalist attack on the Revolution but a question asked from the inside. The French original is in the public domain.

Summary of The Gods Are Athirst

Paris, 1793. Évariste Gamelin is a poor young painter, dutiful to his mother, tender with the woman he loves, and a believer in the Revolution with all the purity he has. He is appointed a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal. From then on he signs more death sentences every day, and every day his faith demands more blood to prove itself right. When Robespierre falls in Thermidor, the guillotine turns back on the men who worked it.

Analysis & legacy

What makes the book uncomfortable to this day is that Gamelin is not a wicked man. He is incorruptible, he gives away his own bread ration to the hungry, and that is exactly what makes him dangerous: once private virtue is identified with political correctness, every doubt becomes treason and every sentence becomes a duty. France follows that slope with great clarity — from trying the guilty, to trying the possibly guilty, to a point at which the number of sentences is the measure of one's loyalty. Gamelin's counterweight is old Brotteaux, a ruined aristocrat and disciple of Lucretius who believes in nothing beyond the chance collisions of atoms — and who is also the one person in the book who risks his life to shelter a priest. France sets the two side by side without comment, and lets his bitterest proposition emerge: absolute conviction kills, while scepticism now and then saves somebody. The prose stays light, full of everyday detail about the price of bread and the fashion in coats, so that the horror shows itself not by shouting but by how easily it settles into routine.

Themes: The French Revolution · The Terror · Fanaticism and virtue · Scepticism · The artist and power

What critics say

• The 1921 prize was awarded to Anatole France in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament. — NobelPrize.org, Nobel Prize in Literature 1921 summary

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Frequently asked questions

What is The Gods Are Athirst about?

Paris, 1793. Évariste Gamelin is a poor young painter, dutiful to his mother, tender with the woman he loves, and a believer in the Revolution with all the purity he has. He is appointed a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal. From then on he signs more death sentences every day, and every day his…

Is The Gods Are Athirst worth reading?

What makes the book uncomfortable to this day is that Gamelin is not a wicked man. He is incorruptible, he gives away his own bread ration to the hungry, and that is exactly what makes him dangerous: once private virtue is identified with political correctness, every doubt becomes treason and every…

When did Anatole France win the Nobel Prize, and why?

Anatole France won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921: “in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament”

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