From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Phrase.
The former lover’s actual occupation was a junior role in a legal practitioner’s office. The narrator’s “in fact” introduces this identity specifically to correct Gamelin’s imagined noble émigré. The following chérubin saute-ruisseau is a humorous picture of an attractive errand boy, not an ecclesiastical cleric or an angel literally present. His later municipal employment and revolutionary military service make social mobility visible while exposing the false political story told about him.
Places to read
- Chapter V, paragraph 30Frenchun petit clerc de procureur: a junior legal office worker. The narrator, not Élodie’s spoken account, supplies this corrective identity.