From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Lemma.
Fournée ordinarily suggests a batch, notably what is put into an oven at one time. Applied to defendants, it describes collective processing after the accused’s chair is replaced by a platform holding fifty people. The word makes a legal transformation perceptible through a material image: individual cases become throughput. The edition translates “batches” rather than turning the implied comparison into an explicit claim that people are literally baked.
Places to read
- Chapter XXII, paragraph 11Frenchon ne procédait plus que par fournées: proceedings were conducted only in batches. The platform and combined accusations define the practice.