DiotimosReading Desk

Identity

Former status and use

ci-devant

Ci-devant means former or formerly, marking an earlier status, name or use displaced by the Revolution.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Meaning

Lemma.

Ci-devant means former or formerly, marking an earlier status, name or use displaced by the Revolution. It describes the sacristy’s former religious function and Brotteaux’s lost nobility; used substantivally, un ci-devant can identify a former noble by abolished status alone. The crowd’s fear of dead ci-devant and the anonymous condemned man show the term’s political charge. Translating every occurrence as aristocrat would erase its non-personal uses and the persistence of rooms and people beneath their changed names.

Places to read

  1. Chapter I, paragraph 9Frenchla ci-devant sacristie: a room’s previous religious use. The Military Committee now occupies it.
  2. Chapter II, paragraph 8Frenchci-devant noble: Brotteaux’s displaced social status. Read with the account of his father’s purchased ennoblement.
  3. Chapter III, paragraph 59Frenchun ci-devant: a formerly noble person. The condemned man remains anonymous to the spectators.
  4. Chapter VI, paragraph 11Frenchces ci-devant: These former masters. The crowd imagines murdered aristocrats still poisoning the living.
  5. Chapter VII, paragraph 1Frenchle grenier du ci-devant: The former nobleman’s attic. Brotteaux is identified through status he no longer possesses.
  6. Chapter IX, paragraph 21Frenchla ci-devant sacristie: The former sacristy. A church room is used by the revolutionary section.