DiotimosReading Desk

Emotion

Terror

terreur

Terreur means extreme fear or dread, but also the organised intimidation and punitive violence associated with revolutionary government; the final chapter’s capitalised Terreur names that historical period retrospectively.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Meaning

Lemma.

Terreur means extreme fear or dread, but also the organised intimidation and punitive violence associated with revolutionary government; the final chapter’s capitalised Terreur names that historical period retrospectively. These uses overlap without being identical. Élodie can contemplate a private union “without terror”: the negation describes her personal lack of alarm, not a political programme. Widow Gamelin’s “holy terror” is reverential awe before the power of judges, linking old authority to the new court. The Convention’s answer to danger in Chapter IX is terror as a political instrument; the prisoners’ growing terror in Chapter XIX is fear suffered under that instrument. Gamelin calls terror salutary and holy, celebrating what he takes to be its achievements. Those praises are his inward speech, not the narrator’s endorsement. His later wish that terror end is nested inside a silent prayer that attributes thoughts to Robespierre and proposes further extermination as the necessary preparation for mercy. The supplied English retains “terror” across these changing contexts and capitalises “Terror” at the retrospective reference. Neither capitalisation nor the adjective “holy” by itself settles whose fear, valuation or policy is being described.

Places to read

  1. Chapter III, paragraph 20FrenchElle envisageait sans terreur: she contemplated without terror. Élodie considers an informal union. Preserve sans: the passage does not say she is terrified.
  2. Chapter IX, paragraph 1Frenchla Convention opposait la terreur: the Convention set terror against the dangers. The narrator presents terror as the institutional response immediately before the gods’ thirst sentence.
  3. Chapter IX, paragraph 37Frenchla sainte terreur: holy terror or reverential dread. Widow Gamelin’s inherited awe of judges now sanctifies her son’s office.
  4. Chapter XIX, paragraph 27FrenchLa terreur, de mois en mois, grandissait: the terror grew from month to month. The following scene makes its reach concrete: twenty designated victims and two hundred frightened prisoners.
  5. Chapter XXV, paragraph 5FrenchTerreur salutaire, ô sainte terreur!: salutary terror, O holy terror. Gamelin praises terror inwardly; Chapter XXV, paragraph 4 explicitly establishes the speech as his.
  6. Chapter XXVI, paragraph 6FrenchQue la terreur s’achève: let terror end. Words Gamelin imagines Robespierre’s demeanour to express, within Gamelin’s own silent prayer; not a speech actually delivered by Robespierre.
  7. Chapter XXIX, paragraph 13Frenchdes chemises rouges de la Terreur: the red shirts of the Terror. Julie’s red tunic commemorates the condemned victims; the capitalised period-name belongs to retrospective narration.