Les Autels de la peur

This tale is set during the revolutionary period, drawing on contemporary memoirists and gleaning famous phrases here and there, such as André Chénier’s panicked remark that the altars of the fatherland would one day give way to the “altars of fear.” First published in serial form in Le Journal des Débats in 1884, it is a sketch for a more substantial work still to come, Les Dieux ont soif, which would plunge readers into the tumultuous hours of the French Revolution and would be published in 1912. A committed republican, Anatole France nonetheless always denounced the crimes of the Revolution: a lesson in tolerance for all those who might be tempted by fanaticism.

This limited, bibliophile-oriented edition is the only edition in book form published during Anatole France’s lifetime.