DiotimosReading Desk

Identity

Tax contractor

traitant

Traitant denotes a financier contracting with the old regime over public revenue or finance, not an ordinary trader or a traiteur supplying prepared food.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Meaning

Lemma.

Traitant denotes a financier contracting with the old regime over public revenue or finance, not an ordinary trader or a traiteur supplying prepared food. Brotteaux’s father enriched himself dans les partis, here financial contracts rather than political parties, and bought the arms later scraped from the family book. The noun also names Brotteaux, now reduced to improvised work and toy-making, even when his old gastronomic knowledge returns at dinner. The edition’s tax-contractor and tax farmer retain the occupational distance between earlier wealth and present scarcity.

Places to read

  1. Chapter II, paragraph 8Frenchancien traitant: Brotteaux’s former financial occupation. Read with the father’s contracting wealth and purchased ennoblement.
  2. Chapter VI, paragraph 57Frenchle traitant son père: His tax-contractor father. Money purchased the arms later scraped from the book.
  3. Chapter X, paragraph 58Frenchle vieux traitant: The old tax farmer. Brotteaux gives Gamelin the recipe for Spartan black broth.