From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSéducteur can denote a man who attracts or leads another into a sexual relationship, but Gamelin gives it the stronger sense of deceiver and abuser.
- In the novelThe narrator makes the mechanism explicit: Gamelin insists on the term séducteur because he cannot imagine Élodie acting from desire.
- In this editionThe supplied English keeps the sequence “seduced, deceived and abused,” then explains that he could not conceive her offering herself.
- A place to readQui était votre séducteur?: a leading designation inside a question.
Meaning
Related words and phrases.
Séducteur can denote a man who attracts or leads another into a sexual relationship, but Gamelin gives it the stronger sense of deceiver and abuser. Victime names the injured person in the story he constructs. The entry concerns that imposed pair of roles, not a finding that every seduction in the novel was coercive.
Use in the book
The narrator makes the mechanism explicit: Gamelin insists on the term séducteur because he cannot imagine Élodie acting from desire. For his cast of mind she must have been taken by force or deceit and thrown into traps. The paragraph describes his required explanation, not facts supplied by Élodie. Her actual earlier description included attraction, tenderness and her belief that the man had loved her.
When she says that the man has left the kingdom and corrects herself to France, Gamelin supplies the category émigré. The narrator then states “in fact”: the man was an attorney’s clerk, is now a sans-culotte dragoon, and has become the lover of a formerly noble woman. Gamelin has reversed the relevant social identity. Élodie is reassured and saddened by his invented political truth and allows it to survive.
His embrace and forgiveness are consequently inseparable from a threat. He calls her the victim of monarchical corruption and promises to recognise the man without knowing his name. The gesture has tenderness for the imagined victim and menace for the imagined culprit. Élodie’s disappointment is also precise: she wanted a more bodily understanding of love, not merely rapid absolution within his moral and political categories.
Places to read
- Chapter V, paragraph 15FrenchQui était votre séducteur?: a leading designation inside a question. Gamelin names the role before discovering an identity.
- Chapter V, paragraph 23Frenchil ne doutait pas qu’Élodie n’eût été séduite, trompée, abusée: certainty imposed on an undisclosed history. The ne in n’eût does not reverse the assertion; Gamelin has no doubt she was seduced, deceived and abused.
- Chapter V, paragraph 23Frenchse fût offerte: voluntary desire he cannot conceive. The larger clause explicitly states his inability to accept this possibility.
- Chapter V, paragraph 29Frenchune vérité conforme à ses passions politiques: a politically convenient construction. Élodie observes his invention; the narrator supplies the corrective facts immediately after.
- Chapter V, paragraph 30FrenchEn fait, l’amant d’Élodie était un petit clerc de procureur: the narrator’s counterstatement. The former lover is not the noble émigré Gamelin imagines.
- Chapter V, paragraph 34FrenchChère victime de la corruption monarchique: a private history recast as political victimhood. Gamelin couples the label with a vow of vengeance.
Translation in this edition
The supplied English keeps the sequence “seduced, deceived and abused,” then explains that he could not conceive her offering herself. This direction of thought must not be inverted. “Victim” is a role Gamelin gives her; “in fact” introduces the narrator’s correction of his social identification. The book’s explicit attribution supplies stronger evidence than any general definition of seduction could.