The Revolt of the Angels

by Anatole France

Overview

The Human Spirit in His Quest for Knowledge“I sought out the laws which govern nature, solid or ethereal, and after much pondering I perceived that the Universe had not been formed as its pretended Creator would have us believe; I knew that all that exists, exists of itself and not by the caprice of Iahveh; that the world is itself its own creator and the spirit its own God. Henceforth I despised Iahveh for his imposture, and I hated him because he showed himself to be opposed to all that I found desirable and good: liberty, curiosity, doubt.” - Anatole France, The Revolt of the Angels

Arcade, a guardian angel of the lowest rank seeks knowledge and falls out of Heaven because of it. He meets other fallen beings who plot to dethrone God. Maurice is the human who Arcade should be guarding and he wants his guardian angel back. But is he ready to face the truth?

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681952123
Publisher:	Xist Publishing
Publication date:	02/10/2016
Series:	Xist Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	167
Sales rank:	145,866
File size:	428 KB

About the Author

Anatole France (1844 - 1924) was a French poet, journalist and novelist. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace and a true Gallic temperament". France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.

Table of Contents

I. Containing in a few lines the history of a French family from 1789 to the present day
II. Wherein useful Information will be found concering a Library where strange things will shortly come to pass
III. Wherein the Mystery begins
IV. Which in its Forceful Brevity projects us to the limits of the Actual world
V. Wherein Everything seems strange because Everything is logical
VI. Wherein Pere Sariette discovers his Missing Treasures
VII. Of a somewhat lively interest, whereof the moral will, I hop,e appeal greatly to my Readers, since it can be expressed by this sorrowful query: "Thought, whither dost thou lead me?" For it is a universally admitted truth that true wisdom lies in not thinking at all
VIII. Which speaks of Love, a subject which always gives pleasure, for a Tale without Love is like Beef without Mustard: an insipid dish
IX. Wherein it is shown that, as an ancient Greek Poet said, "Nothing is sweeter than Aphrodite the Golden"
X. Which far surpasses an audacity the imaginative flights of Dante and Milton
XI. Recounts in what manner the Angel, attired in the cast-off garments of a suicide, leaves the youthful Maurice without a Heavenly Guardian
XII. Wherein it is set forth how the Angel Mirar, when bearing Grace and Consolation to those dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysees in Paris, beheld a Music-Hall Singer named Bouchotte and fell in love with her
XIII. Wherein we hear the beautiful archangel Zita unfold her lofty designs and are shown the wings of Mirar, all moth-eaten, in a cupboard
XIV. Which reveals the Cherub toiling for the welfare of humanity and concludes in an entirely novel manner with the Miracle of the Flute
XV. Wherein we see young Maurice bewailing the loss of his Guardian Angel, even in his mistress's arms, and wherein we hear the Abbe Patouille reject as vain and illusory all notions of a new rebellion of the Angels
XVI. Wherein Mira the Seeress, Zephyrine and the fatal Amedee are successively brought upon the scene, and wherein the notion of Euripides that those whom Zeus wishes to crush he first makes mad, is illustrated by the terrible example of Monsieur Sariette
XVII. Wherein we learn that Sophar, no less eager for gold than Mammon, looked upon his heavenly home less favourably than upon France, a country blessed with a Savings Bank and Loan Departments, and wherein we see, yet once again, that whoso is possessed of this world's goods fears the evil effects of any change
XVIII. Wherein is begun the Gardener's Story, in the course of which we shall see the Destiny of the World unfolded in a discourse as broad and magnificent in its views, as Bossuet's discourse on the history of the universe is narrow and dismal
XIX. The Gardener's Story, continued
XX. The Gardener's Story, continued
XXI. The Gardener's Story, concluded
XXII. Wherein we are shown the interior of a Bric-a-brac shop, and see how Pere Guinardon's guilty happiness is marred by the jealousy of a love-lorn dame
XXIII. Wherein we are permitted to observe the admirable character of Bouchotte, who resists violence but yields to love. After that let no one call the Author a Misogynist
XXIV. Containing an account of the vicissitudes that befel the "Lucretius" of the Prior do Vendome
XXV. Wherein Maurice finds his angel again
XXVI. The Conclave
XXVII. Wherein we shall see revealed a dark and secret mystery and learn how it comes about that Empires are often hurled against Empires, and ruin falls alike upon the victors and the vanquished; and the wise reader (if such there be--which I doubt) will meditate upon this important utterance: "A war is a matter of business"
XXVIII. Which treats of a painful domestic scene
XXIX. Wherein we see how the Angel, having become a man, behaves like a man, coveting another's wife and betraying his friend. In this chapter the correctness of young D'Esparvieu's conduct will be made manifest
XXX. Which treats of an affair of honour, and which will afford the reader an opportunity of judging whether, as Arcade affirms, the experience of our faults makes better men and women of us
XXXI. Wherein we are led to marvel at the readiness with which an honest man of timid and gentle nature can commit a horrible crime
XXXII. Which describes how Nectaire's flute was heard in the tavern of Clodomir
XXXIII. How a dreadful crime plunges Paris into a state of terror
XXXIV. Which contains an account of the arrest of Bouchotte and Maurice, of the disaster which befell the D'Esparvieu library, and of the departure of the Angels
XXXV. And last, wherein the sublime dream of Satan is unfolded