Anatole France is the pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault, French novelist, poet, critic and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921. The Gods Are Athirst is a historical novel about the French Revolution. The book begins: Evariste Gamelin, painter, pupil of David, member of the Section du Pont-Neuf, formerly Section Henri IV, had betaken himself at an early hour in the morning to the old church of the Barnabites, which for three years, since 21st May 1790, had served as meeting-place for the General Assembly of the section.