The Gods Are Athirst

Historical Orientation

This short sequence supplies public landmarks. It does not assign a precise day to every scene, and it does not remove the chronological compressions identified in the notes.

1789. The Revolution begins to transform the institutions of the monarchy. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is adopted on 26 August.

21 May 1790. The division of Paris into forty-eight sections is authorised, replacing the earlier sixty districts.

August and September 1792. The monarchy falls; elections for the Convention follow, and the Republic is proclaimed. The active/passive distinction is abolished for the Convention elections.

21 January 1793. Louis XVI is executed. The novel’s opening political world is that of the Republic after the king’s death.

Spring 1793. War, the Vendée rising and conflict between revolutionary groups intensify. The Committee of Public Safety is established in April. Marat’s prosecution and acquittal become public demonstrations of political allegiance.

31 May to 2 June 1793. The confrontation with the Girondins culminates in the arrest of leading deputies. Lists and demands concerning the twenty-two have their own earlier history, explained in the notes.

Autumn 1793. Suspicion, arrest, political trials and the recasting of civic and religious life give the novel much of its institutional setting. The revolutionary calendar renames the measures of time.

Spring and early summer 1794. The elimination of rival revolutionary groups, the Festival of the Supreme Being and the Law of 22 Prairial belong to the later movement of the story.

9 and 10 Thermidor Year II, 27 and 28 July 1794. Robespierre’s overthrow and execution change the political situation. The novel continues through the effects of that reversal.

1911–12. France publishes the novel in serial form and then in a Calmann-Lévy volume. The author and his readers look back on the revolutionary events from more than a century later.