From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordPeine de mort denotes capital punishment, distinct from the instrument guillotine and from particular forms of supplice, bodily torment or execution.
- In the novelGamelin claims that only despots make the death penalty a necessary attribute of authority.
- In this editionThe English preserves the difference between promulgating the law and applying it.
- A place to readni par vertu ni par justice: Neither from virtue nor justice.
Meaning
Phrase.
Peine de mort denotes capital punishment, distinct from the instrument guillotine and from particular forms of supplice, bodily torment or execution. Its institutional legitimacy and proposed abolition are disputed in direct speech.
Use in the book
Gamelin claims that only despots make the death penalty a necessary attribute of authority. He wants an abolition law promulgated without delay, but applied only after the Republic’s last enemy is dead. The temporal condition leaves the humane future dependent on an unbounded punitive present.
Brotteaux’s earlier concession is more oblique. He derives no prohibition of killing from nature and says capital punishment is legitimate only from necessity or advantage, not virtue or justice. He immediately calls his aversion to blood an uncorrected depravity. The ironic vocabulary praises what the explicit philosophical premise cannot adequately secure: practical reluctance to kill.
Herman welcomes milder punishments and would abolish the death penalty outside public safety, yet regards execution for crimes against national sovereignty as a duty. His exception shows how an inherited humane reform can coexist with the special coercive needs of the state.
Places to read
- Chapter VI, paragraph 20Frenchni par vertu ni par justice: Neither from virtue nor justice. Brotteaux excludes these motives in a deliberately provocative conditional argument.
- Chapter VI, paragraph 21Frenchlorsque le dernier ennemi de la République aura péri: When the Republic’s last enemy has perished. The last-enemy quantifier prevents reading the speech as immediate operational abolition.
- Chapter VI, paragraph 21Frenchl’abolira un jour: Will abolish it one day. Gamelin’s prediction is followed by a restrictive condition for application.
- Chapter IX, paragraph 2Frenchen tout ce qui ne touchait pas à la sûreté publique: In everything not concerning public safety. Herman’s willingness to abolish is explicitly bounded.
Translation in this edition
The English preserves the difference between promulgating the law and applying it. It also retains Brotteaux’s “depravity” for his humane recoil, signalling the comic reversal rather than offering an uncomplicated endorsement of execution.