France: The Gods Will Have Blood

France, Anatole: The Gods Will Have Blood, Frederick Davies; Penguin Classics, London, 1979

I enjoyed this book - though the subject matter was grim.  It was strange to think of Mary Wollstonecraft being in Paris at the same time as the events depicted in this novel.  I thought the characters were interesting and the events in the novel were quite incredible even though they must bear a very close resemblance to what actually occurred and to many of the people involved.

Gamelin was a frightening character because he seemed quiet and sane yet was capable of so much evil action.  I thought that St. John Rivers in Jane Eyre (which is our next book) was similar in that he had a cold character and a somewhat self-righteousness nature.  I think as a missionary he would have been an intolerant man who would have exacted severe punishments on his "flock" 'for their own good'.
As with most readers, I really liked Maurice Brotteaux des Ilettes, the atheist epicurean.  He says

Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness...We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others.  In ignorance we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.

Barthes would have agreed with him about our ignorance of others.

Brotteaux also speaks on the value of human life, saying that he doesn't feel it has much value.

Nature...has certainly never given me evidence to believe that a man's life has any value; indeed on the contrary, she shows in many ways that it has none.  The sole destiny of all living beings seems only to become fodder of all other living beings fated also to the same end.

Like a good epicurean, atoms to atoms.

Gamelin asks Broatteaux whether he believes in Reason.

I hope at least, Citizen Brotteaux, that when the Republic establishes the worship of Reason, you will not withhold your acceptance of so wise a religion?

I love reason, but my love does not make me a fanatic, Brotteaux answered. 'Reason is our guide, a light to show us our way; but if you make a divinity of it, it will blind you and lead you into crime.'

This book very graphically and effectively describes what can happen when people become fanatical about change or about a cause.  I remember a movie I saw in the 90s about China and it showed the same situation where a major societal change has taken place and people are paranoid, fanatical and severe.  It was called The Blue Kite by Tian Zhuangzhuang.  You would see people turning neighbours in before they could turn you in.  I especially remember one scene where one of the main characters is at a meeting where they are dealing with a major problem and he leaves to go to the bathroom - when he comes back everyone turns silently to look at him and he immediately realizes that they have decided to make him the scapegoat and he is sent to a work camp.  I also remember a scene, I think from the same movie, where the officials have banned dogs (probably because of rabies concerns) and they are killing any dogs they see but they are also inspecting everyone's homes for dogs.  A family hides their little dog in a bench when the inspectors come and everything seems ok and then the dog whines and the inspectors stop as they are leaving and then follow the noise and find and seize the dog.  I can't remember whether they shoot it or just take it away but I can't imagine what the people would have felt like during those times.

The Gods Will have Blood reminded me of that atmosphere.  Movies I have seen about the Spanish Civil war and the revolution in Russia often dealt with those themes as well.
France writes:

The Convention intended to have one remedy for everything: Terror.  Blood would have blood.

France describes the magistrates, untrained men given the power of life and death.  Towards the end of the Terror, the prisons were so full of the accused that the magistrates were instructed not to even hear witnesses or defences, not to try and ascertain facts but just to use their consciences, their intuition to decide whether an accused was guilty or innocent.  France describes the trials of several

obstinate, empty-headed soldiers with the brains of sparrows in the skulls of oxen [...] What did it matter whether this soldier was innocent or guilty! [...] It was imperative to teach these generals of the Republic to conquer or to die.

Gamelin had a passion for the Republic but no love of humanity. He declaims:

I am a magistrate. I am responsible only to my conscience...Judgment is mine, not yours. I know neither friends nor enemies.

Brotteaux speaks to Gamelin about the regime and suggests a more Machiavellian process would have been more successful.

It seems to me they would have done better to have killed off quickly and secretly the more irreconcilable of their enemies and won over the others by gifts and promises.  A Tribunal such as yours kills off people too slowly and inspires too little fear to achieve any good. [...] The harm it does is to unite all in whom it inspires fear, and makes out of a diverse crowd of contradictory interests and passions, a powerful party capable of effective, united action.

Despite this somewhat ironical suggestion, Brotteaux seems to have a tolerance and acceptance or human foibles.  He mentions a curé he once knew and says:

We should adopt his principles and govern men as they are and not as we'd like them to be.

Gamelin has been swayed by the absolutism of the Revolution.  He describes hearing Robespierre speak and says:

Through the voice of this wise man, he was discovering lighter and purer truths; he was comprehending a philosophy, a metaphysic, of revolution which raised his thoughts far above gross material happenings into a world of absolute certainties safe from all the subjective errors of the senses. [...] Robespierre simplified everything for him, revealing the  good and the evil to him in simple, clear terms [...] Gamelin tasted the mystical joy of a believer who has come to know the word that saves and the word that destroys.

It's a frightening picture and France structured his tale very cleverly and marched me through to an ending where all the people who were in positions of power and adoration have now been brought low and sent to the guillotine but not before killing many of their former compatriots and friends.  A new order is being established and the novel ends with two of the survivors, Elodie and Desmahis joining together and moving on.

It was an unsettling novel and it made me want to go back and read A Tale of Two Cities.