From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSymbole can mean a sign or image, but it also has the theological sense of a formal profession of belief: a creed.
- In the novelRobespierre’s speech relieves Gamelin of the complexity that made individual trials hard to understand.
- In this editionThe edition’s “creed” at Chapter XIII, paragraph 12 is a substantive semantic choice, confirmed by the passage’s theological vocabulary.
- A place to readFédéralisme, indivisibilité: federalism, indivisibility.
Meaning
Related words and phrases.
Symbole can mean a sign or image, but it also has the theological sense of a formal profession of belief: a creed. Foi means faith or belief. Crime verbal is wrongdoing identified through words. In chapter XIII these terms form a connected vocabulary, not three free-standing metaphors.
Use in the book
Robespierre’s speech relieves Gamelin of the complexity that made individual trials hard to understand. The opposed words fédéralisme and indivisibilité now sort the world into damnation and salvation. His pleasure is specifically that of a believer who knows the saving and destroying words. Verbal classification promises a short route to the distinction between guilt and innocence.
The surrounding language of revelation, religious spirit, enthusiasm and ecclesiastical courts fixes symbole as creed in this passage. Gamelin is not simply learning to read a visual emblem. The narrator’s apostrophe to the treasures of faith culminates an account of their power to replace inquiry, and its exultant form is inseparable from its disturbing judicial result.
This sense must not absorb every later symbole. At Gamelin’s execution the thrown carnation is a “symbol and image” of Élodie’s lips: there the word belongs to sensuous representation. The same noun can therefore name both a doctrinal formula through which Gamelin judges and the final physical sign through which he receives affection.
Places to read
- Chapter XIII, paragraph 12FrenchFédéralisme, indivisibilité: federalism, indivisibility. The opposed political terms operate as articles of Gamelin’s new creed.
- Chapter XIII, paragraph 12Frenchdu crime absolu, du crime verbal: absolute crime, verbal crime. Narration compares revolutionary and former ecclesiastical tribunals.
- Chapter XIII, paragraph 12Frenchil possédait un symbole: he possessed a creed. Theological context, not a generic visual symbol.
- Chapter XXVIII, paragraph 16Frenchle symbole et l’image de ces lèvres rouges et parfumées: symbol and image of Élodie’s lips. The later flower scene requires the representational sense, not “creed.”
Translation in this edition
The edition’s “creed” at Chapter XIII, paragraph 12 is a substantive semantic choice, confirmed by the passage’s theological vocabulary. Its “symbol and image” at Chapter XXVIII, paragraph 16 properly changes with the local sense. “Take cognisance” translates the legal connaître de: the Tribunal will claim jurisdiction over such crime, not simply acquire information about it.