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Body

Restraint and abandon

retenue; abandon

Retenue is controlled reserve in public conduct, contrasted with secret abandon, the letting go of restraint.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Meaning

Related words and phrases.

Retenue is controlled reserve in public conduct, contrasted with secret abandon, the letting go of restraint. The narrator’s old-regime etiquette digression says public constraint could give private surrender special value. It does not simply praise repression or claim that intimacy was absent before the Revolution.

Places to read

  1. Chapter VII, paragraph 14Frenchla retenue gardée dans la société: Restraint maintained in society. The young soldier’s casual touch of the chair prompts the comparison.
  2. Chapter VII, paragraph 14Frenchl’abandon secret: Secret abandon. The value of private release depends on a preceding rule of restraint.