From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Lemma.
An accapareur is one who corners or withholds supplies, here imagined as making food scarce and dear. The label has both an economic sense and an accusatory political force. Gamelin treats hoarders as conspirators allied with external enemies. The capon episode places rising food prices beside fear of famine, reported aristocratic wishes and an assertion about hoarders preparing it. Only the aristocrats’ wishes are explicitly qualified by disait-on. Keep that grammatical scope rather than extending the reported-speech marker to every clause, or treating the label itself as proof of a complete causal account.
Places to read
- Chapter II, paragraph 18Frenchaux accapareurs et aux agioteurs qui affament le peuple: hoarders and speculators blamed for starving people. Part of Gamelin’s speech.
- Chapter V, paragraph 44Frenchles accapareurs la préparaient: hoarders presented as preparing famine. The preceding disait-on explicitly qualifies the aristocrats’ wishes. The clause about hoarders has no repeated marker; read the full sequence beside the material gift of food.