DiotimosReading Desk

Irony

The Awakening of the People

Réveil du Peuple

The anti-Jacobin anthem is demanded by the fashionable theatre audience and repeatedly quoted through its opening appeal to a people of brothers.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Meaning

Phrase.

The anti-Jacobin anthem is demanded by the fashionable theatre audience and repeatedly quoted through its opening appeal to a people of brothers. A lone response with the Marseillaise is drowned in jeers, and the crowd calls for deaths. The song’s title names awakening, but the surrounding action does not certify a morally purified people. The edition distinguishes the anthem from the patriotic song it suppresses and preserves the refrain’s recurrence.

Places to read

  1. Chapter XXIX, paragraph 28Frenchle Réveil du Peuple: The Awakening of the People. The audience demands the anthem associated with muscadins and the gilded youth.
  2. Chapter XXIX, paragraph 30aFrenchAllons, enfants de la patrie: Come, children of the fatherland. The rival song’s opening belongs to a single voice.
  3. Chapter XXIX, paragraph 33aFrenchPeuple français, peuple de frères: French people, people of brothers. The majority’s refrain returns after that voice has been silenced.