The Gods Will Have Blood

Celebrated French author Anatole France wrote the novel The Gods Will Have Blood in 1912. The French title is Les Dieux Ont Soif, which is also sometimes translated as The Gods Are Thirsty. Set during the French Revolution of 1789, the novel tells the story of a fictional young man who rises to power as an ideologically devoted follower of rebel leader Robespierre and a man committed to executing the full power of Robespierre’s subsequent Reign of Terror. The novel’s title is an apocryphal statement attributed to the Aztecs – it supposedly explains the need for human sacrifice.

Évariste Gamelin is a young Parisian painter who is inspired by the ideals of the new Republic after the overthrow of the monarchy. He makes sure to come to every session of the General Assembly of his Pont-Neuf neighborhood, and is incensed by those who don’t both to show up to vote in the meetings or to watch the trials of those accused of being anti-Republican.

After a session, Évariste comes home to the rundown house he shares with his mother. Évariste’s idealism blinds him to some aspects of their poverty and enables him to gloss over the fact that his art isn’t earning enough money to sustain them. His mother, on the other hand, argues with him about the fact that many people in the country are starving. She states  that there is a huge gulf between the tenets of the revolutionary movement and the actual facts on the ground.



Évariste takes a set of playing cards he painted promoting the revolution to the printer Jean Blaise, in hopes of selling his designs. Blaise explains that card players don’t want to change card designs from “king” to “liberty” and that the cards won’t sell. Évariste is infuriated by Blaise’s rejection, which to him seems unpatriotic, and he storms out of the shop.

Although he has been romantically interested in Élodie, Blaise’s daughter, Évariste now sends her a letter explaining that they can no longer see each other in the shop. Instead, they arrange to meet in secret. After professing their love for each other, they start meeting every morning. Eventually, Élodie reveals that several years earlier, a man seduced (to a modern audience, raped) and then abandoned her. Évariste immediately vows revenge despite the fact that she doesn’t know the man’s name.

Évariste’s enthusiasm soon comes to the attention his distant acquaintance Citizeness Rochemaure, a rich woman who is connected to Jean-Paul Marat, a real-life politician who held extremist views and vigorously defended the excesses of The Terror. Days after Rochemaure promises Évariste a good job, he is appointed as a magistrate, one of the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal.



In his first trial, Évariste finds the defendant innocent because of a lack of evidence, and Élodie praises his mercy and fairness. But the more people he judges, the more he loses any sense of fallibility or empathy. Relying on his faith in his sense of justice, he condemns most of those up for trial to death.

Rochemaure visits a former nobleman, Maurice Brotteaux, who isn’t a complete reactionary, but does deeply sympathize with the victims of the revolution and the anti-revolutionary trials. Rochemaure writes a letter detailing Brotteaux testimony on the conditions of the imprisoned Queen Marie-Antoinette and others. When Rochemaure’s lover Henry comes to tell her he is leaving, he steals this letter, deciding to use it for his own gain. He will report on Rochemaure and Brotteaux’s activities to the Committee of General Safety, Robespierre’s organization that is running The Terror).

Brotteaux practices what he preaches, offering his house as shelter to Father Longuemare, a destitute monk, and Athenais, a prostitute, as both are being investigated by the Committee. But Rochemaure’s letter results in her, Brotteaux, the monk, and the prostitute being imprisoned.



In the meantime, Évariste grows even more bloodthirsty and ever more loyal to Robespierre and his ideology of “purification by blood-letting.” These condemnations aren’t justice, but personal expediency: for Robespierre, the executions are a way to free up more jail cells for new prisoners; for Évariste, they are a chance to put to death Maubel, a young man he wrongly believes to be Élodie’s seducer.

Évariste’s sister Julie comes out of hiding. She begs Évariste to spare the life of Fortune de Chassagne, a banker who is Julie’s lover. But Évariste would condemn his own sister, if he could find her. Soon after, a law is passed that allows prisoners to be executed without a trial, and immediately, Évariste sentences Fortune, Rochemaure, Brotteaux, and Father Longuemare to death. Whatever vague feelings of guilt he has over the deaths of all of his friends and family members, Évariste believes he is acting in the best interests of the Republic. To prove his dedication, he breaks up with Élodie.

However, the will of the people is catching up with Robespierre and his followers. No one comes to watch the executions, pamphlets mocking The Terror are starting to be printed, and several plots against Robespierre’s life are attempted. At last, Robespierre and his Committee are accused of treason by the General Assembly, and he and his followers are arrested. Évariste attempts to resist arrest, but is overpowered and prevented from killing himself. Instead, he and the other judges are condemned to death. On the day of the execution, Évariste finds himself terrified of death and has to be dragged to the guillotine kicking and screaming without any dignity. Élodie throws a flower towards him as he passes.



The novel ends five months later, as Élodie finds a new lover, an artist named Desmahis, and throws Évariste’s ring into the fire.