What I've looked up thus far for The Gods Will Have Blood

Gamelin mentions to his girlfriend Elodie that her slicing bread reminds him of a German novel where Werther admires a girl named Charlotte doing the same action. Elodie asks if they get married and Gamelin, ever charmless, says no, he died a violent death.

The novel he is referring to is The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe published in 1774 which is basically about a love triangle that Werther decides to resolve by shooting himself in the head. Unfortunately he fucks it up and doesn't die for 12 more hours.

I knew who Danton was, a moderate figure in the French Revolution who ran afoul of Robespierre in the end, but not when he was killed. April, 1794 which was tragically only a few months before Robespierre himself met the same end.

The book keeps referring to ci-devant aristocrats. This was a derogatory term used during the Revolution for aristocrats who had not mended their ways. Prior to the Revolution, it was also derogatory but meant an aristocrat who was broke, like someone out of a Fitzgerald novel.

I was curious what became of the Tuileries, briefly the home of the Royal Family after they fled Versailles and later turned into a government center during the Revolution. Then it was Napoleon's palace. It was burned down in 1871 during the Paris Commune uprising. Parts of the Louvre were also burned. They were restored but in the end the French government decided the palace was a symbol of the old monarchical ways and it was torn down in 1882. The Tuileries Gardens are what remain.

Here is what it used to look like:

Brotteaux mentions that he also works as an amanuensis. This basically means someone who works as a secretary or more accurately, one who takes dictation. You can see the Latin word "manu" within it.

After all the descriptions of the sans culotte uniform with the striped trousers, I wanted some kind of visual because I keep picturing clown pants. Voila:

Which still looks a little Big Top-ish to me.

There are so many debates on religion in the book and the most sympathetic character is the atheist and former aristocrat Brotteaux (although Father Longuemare is a modest, likable counterpoint), I was curious if Anatole France was himself an atheist.  Yep. He once wrote a satirical novel called Penguin Island about what happens when a blind missionary baptizes a flock of penguins, mistaking them for humans. And the ultimate proof he's in the club: Hitch included him in his Portable Atheist.

Unrelated to research, I was reading this the other night and Music Choice played Tracy Chapman's "Talkin Bout a Revolution" which went from vaguely inspirational to specifically creepy hella quick. You better free your mind instead, Tracy.