Read "The Gods are Athirst" by Anatole France online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
There seemed no end to these trials for conspiracy in the prisons. Forty-nine accused crowded the tiers of seats. Maurice Brotteaux occupied the right-hand corner of the topmost row, -- the place of honour. He was dressed in his plum-coloured surtout, which he had brushed very carefully the day before and mended at the pocket where his little Lucretius had ended by fretting a hole. Beside him sat the woman Rochemaure, painted and powdered and patched, a brilliant and ghastly figure. They had put the Pere Longuemare between her and the girl Athenais, who had recovered her look of youthful freshness at the Madelonnettes.
On the platform the gendarmes massed a number of other prisoners unknown to any of our friends, and who, as likely as not, knew nothing of each other, -- yet accomplices one and all, -- lawyers, journalists, _ci-devant_ nobles, citizens, and citizens' wives. The _citoyenne_ Rochemaure caught sight of Gamelin on the jurors' bench. He had not answered her urgent letters and repeated messages; still she had not abandoned hope and threw him a look of supplication, trying to appear fascinating and pathetic for him. But the young juror's cold glance robbed her of any illusion she might have entertained.