From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordEnvertueuser and endéificoquer are conspicuously ungainly coined verbs for making people virtuous and loading them with divinity.
- In the novelBrotteaux prefers the practical tolerance he recalls in imperfect priests to the Jacobins’ project of guillotining people into virtue, wisdom and worship of the Supreme Being.
- In this editionThe English chooses “cram us with virtue and divinity” rather than equally opaque new verbs, and gives théophages as “god-eaters”.
- A place to readgouverner les hommes tels qu’ils sont: Govern people as they are.
Meaning
Related words and phrases.
Envertueuser and endéificoquer are conspicuously ungainly coined verbs for making people virtuous and loading them with divinity. Théophage, literally a god-eater, is a mocking reference to Eucharistic belief. The passage deliberately mixes verbal invention, theological vocabulary and coarse irreverence.
Use in the book
Brotteaux prefers the practical tolerance he recalls in imperfect priests to the Jacobins’ project of guillotining people into virtue, wisdom and worship of the Supreme Being. His argument is comparative: he does not convert to Catholic belief or present the priests’ doctrines as true. He mocks their trade in fables and prayers even while preferring their accommodation to ordinary weakness.
The drunken priest’s maxim about living off sinners supports the concluding demand to govern people as they are rather than as rulers would like them to be. That is Brotteaux’s political lesson, framed in an irreverent anecdote. The claim that the Supreme Being made the Jacobins in his image also reverses against them the relation between divine models and human conduct.
Places to read
- Chapter X, paragraph 43Frenchgouverner les hommes tels qu’ils sont: Govern people as they are. The practical conclusion drawn from the priest’s cynical maxim.
- Chapter X, paragraph 43Frenchnos simples théophages: Our simple god-eaters. A derisive Catholic designation within a comparative preference, not an expression of orthodox faith.
- Chapter X, paragraph 43Frenchnous envertueuser et nous endéificoquer: Cram us with virtue and divinity. Brotteaux’s paired neologisms make improvement sound coercively manufactured.
Translation in this edition
The English chooses “cram us with virtue and divinity” rather than equally opaque new verbs, and gives théophages as “god-eaters”. The supporting term croqueur d’orémus becomes “prayer-mumbler”: its literal eating image is part of the French comic texture.