DiotimosReading Desk

Institutions

Active citizen

citoyen actif

Active citizen names a qualified participant in the early revolutionary franchise, rather than merely someone energetic in public life.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Meaning

Phrase.

Active citizen names a qualified participant in the early revolutionary franchise, rather than merely someone energetic in public life. The narrator describes tax thresholds, then says the Pont-Neuf section treats anyone who paid for his National Guard uniform as elector and eligible for office. That is how penniless Gamelin qualifies in the story. The supplied edition warns that the earlier active/passive distinction had already been abolished for Convention elections; France’s 1793 scene should not be used as a precise contemporary statement of franchise law.

Places to read

  1. Chapter I, paragraph 21Frenchcitoyen actif de sa section: locally recognised voting and office-holding status. Read the narrator’s uniform exception and the edition’s chronological caution together.