Character guide

Maurice d'Esparvieu

major

Also known as Maurice, young Maurice, Monsieur Maurice, Young d'Esparvieu, Monsieur Maurice d'Esparvieu, young Maurice d'Esparvieu

Maurice d'Esparvieu is a well-off young man of fashionable Paris, living on family money and entangled with a married woman, Madame des Aubels. When his guardian angel Arcade abruptly renounces Heaven and walks out, Maurice is left genuinely frightened — not of damnation so much as of facing life without the spiritual support he'd always assumed was there. His helpless, half-comic attempts to reason with Arcade and his alarm at the angel's blasphemous reading matter anchor the novel's opening and give the cosmic revolt its first human witness.

Arcade

major

Also known as Monsieur Arcade, the kindly Arcade, dear Arcade, young Arcade, the handsome Arcade

Arcade begins as the dutiful guardian of young Maurice d'Esparvieu, but long hours in the family's library have led him to study theology, cosmogony, and natural philosophy — and to conclude that the God he served is an ignorant, cruel tyrant. He abandons his post, recruits disaffected angels across Paris, and dreams of renewing Lucifer's revolt, though his old comrade Théophile Belais, fallen for love of a music-hall singer, wants no part of it. His fervor and his willingness to argue theology with anyone make him the engine of the book's central rebellion.

Monsieur Julien Sariette

supporting

Also known as Monsieur Sariette, Poor old Sariette, old Sariette, Sariette, poor old Sariette

Monsieur Sariette has devoted his life to the d'Esparvieu library, cataloguing it with scientific precision and treating every volume as sacred. When books begin appearing on wrong shelves and in wrong rooms — a polyglot Bible blotted with ink, a Genesis dissertation dragged down from the attic — he is thrown into anguish, suspecting burglars, then monkeys, then his own sanity. His mounting panic over the rearranged library is the novel's first signal that something supernatural is at work among the shelves, and his distress makes the angelic intrusion feel domestic before it feels cosmic.

Madame de la Verdelière

supporting

Also known as Bouchotte, Madame d'Esparvieu

Madame de la Verdelière moves in the best French society as one of its most gracious grandes dames, assiduous in every modish and patriotic cause. When Maurice is injured, she personally calls to ask after him and offers to nurse him — only to have Arcade, at Madame des Aubels' urging, shut the door in her face. Her brief appearance captures the polished, self-satisfied world of charity and visiting cards against which the angels' revolt plays out, and the small humiliation of her rejected kindness shows how quickly that world's protocols can be overturned.

Gilberte des Aubels

supporting

Also known as Gilberte, des Aubels

Gilberte des Aubels is a young married woman of Maurice's social circle, carrying on an affair with him while keeping up appearances. When Maurice is wounded and visitors crowd to his flat, it is at her vehement instigation that Arcade shuts the door on Madame de la Verdelière — a small sign of how much influence she holds over the household and over Maurice himself. Her presence grounds the novel's celestial drama in ordinary Parisian intrigue, and her jealousy and practicality make her a quiet counterweight to the angels' grand abstractions.

Prince Istar

supporting

Also known as Istar, the savage Istar

Prince Istar is a Kerûb who has joined the colony of fallen angels in Paris, where he spends his mornings bent over furnaces and retorts, concocting explosives for the good of humanity and dodging the police. He has spoken at radical meetings and served prison time for anti-militarism, and he tells Arcade frankly that he has no preference for angels over men — the coming social revolution interests him more than the reconquest of Heaven. His blunt, uncouth laugh and his willingness to forget his native land in favor of earthly upheaval make him both a comic foil and a serious challenge to Arcade's celestial ambitions.

Père Guinardon

supporting

Also known as Guinardon

Guinardon belongs to the bohemian Paris that Anatole France paints with affectionate irony—a world of cheap wine, unfinished canvases, and opinions delivered without hesitation. His craft ties him to the material past, to things made and remade by human hands, which quietly mirrors the novel's obsession with creation, forgery, and who gets to claim authorship of the world. As the celestial plot gathers in the cafés and gardens around him, his skeptical, earthbound voice keeps the rebellion grounded in the everyday.

Théophile Belais

supporting

Also known as Théophile, Meanwhile Théophile

Once the archangel Mirar, Théophile now gives violin lessons to children by day and plays in dance saloons by night, having quit heaven for love of a beautiful music-hall singer. When Arcade recruits him for a new celestial revolt, he refuses: he adores the Master he no longer serves and wants no part in politics or reform. His melancholy fidelity—love, not rebellion, caused his fall—sets a tender counterweight to the coming war in heaven.

Satan

supporting

Long before Time, Lucifer shone with intelligence and daring in a palace of diamond and gold, and Iahveh on his mountain grew jealous of him. He despised the complacent rabble of spirits and offered friendship to those with restless souls and a wild love of liberty, who deserted God's mountain en masse. Old Nectaire's testimony paints him as the noble heart of the revolt—frank, constant, indomitable—making him the moral center of the angels' cause.

Zita

supporting

Also known as Zita the obscure

Zita comes to Maurice's rooms to claim Arcade for the revolution, and her flawless beauty so unsettles the boy that he instantly dislikes her. She is terse, commanding, and utterly committed—one word from her summons Nectaire to the conspirators' table. As the recruiter and organizer of the angelic revolt, she embodies the movement's seriousness and its cost, coolly severing Arcade from the human life he had begun to enjoy.

Zéphyrine

minor

Also known as old Zéphyrine

An old servant in the d'Esparvieu household.

Ialdabaoth

supporting

Ialdabaoth is the Master Arcade once adored and now denounces as an ignorant, stupid, and cruel tyrant, greedy for praise. Nectaire's account of heaven shows him jealous of Lucifer and served mostly by spirits whose only virtue is fear of the Lord. He never appears directly in these early scenes, but his offstage presence—as the adversary the conspirators must measure and outmatch—gives the rebellion its target and its stakes.

Iahveh

supporting

Also known as old Iahveh, the ancient Iahveh

From his mountain, Iahveh watched Lucifer's brilliance with envy and demanded a worship rooted in fear rather than love. Nectaire, once the Domination Alaciel, studied nature until he concluded that the world exists of itself and not by Iahveh's caprice, and came to hate the deity for opposing liberty, curiosity, and doubt. As the celestial antagonist whose thunderbolts and hosts the rebels must reckon with, he looms over the whole conspiracy without ever needing to step onstage.

Abbé Patouille

supporting

Also known as the Abbé Patouille, Meanwhile Abbé Patouille, Abbé, The Abbé Patouille, The Abbé

Abbé Patouille serves as confessor and spiritual counselor to the d'Esparvieu household, exhorting the wounded Maurice to prayer against the Devil while cheerfully noting that public opinion has turned back toward the Church. His fat cheeks droop at Maurice's blasphemous talk of guardian angels, then plump up again at the thought of Christian schools multiplying and the Cross gaining the day — but money is always wanted. He embodies the comfortable, calculating piety against which the novel's angelic rebellion quietly measures itself.

Gaétan d'Esparvieu

supporting

Also known as Monsieur Gaétan, Monsieur Gaétan d'Esparvieu, Uncle Gaétan

Gaétan d'Esparvieu moves through the d'Esparvieu family as its urbane, unillusioned elder, treating religion, love, and respectability as matters of convenience rather than conviction. Where Maurice flails between mistress, angel, and conscience, his uncle observes with the detached amusement of a man who has long since stopped expecting much from either heaven or earth. His presence sharpens the novel's portrait of a bourgeois world whose real faith is comfort, and against which the angels' revolt takes on its peculiar edge.

Nectaire

supporting

Also known as old Nectaire

Nectaire appears among the assembled angels at Clodomir's Montmartre restaurant as a quiet old gardener, yet his toast to Dionysus and his invocation of Methymna's vines and Falernus's storehouses reveal a being steeped in antique pagan memory. He lends the conspiracy against Ialdabaoth a sense of deep, sensuous history — wine, wisdom, and love as older gods than the tyrant of the heavens. His gravity and age give the revolt its long perspective, reminding the younger angels what is truly at stake.

René d'Esparvieu

minor

Also known as René, Monsieur René d'Esparvieu, Monsieur René

Maurice's father, a respected magistrate.

Baron Max Everdingen

minor

Also known as Max Everdingen, Baron, Baron Everdingen, the Baron Everdingen

A German baron and friend of the d'Esparvieu family.

Archangel Michael

minor

Also known as the beautiful Archangel, The Archangel Michael, Archangel Michael

The leader of the loyalist angels in Heaven.

Dionysus

minor

Also known as Dionysus Semele

The Greek god of wine, appearing as a character.

Léon

minor

Also known as little Léon, Little Léon

A young boy, possibly a servant or relative.

Baron Alexandre d'Esparvieu

minor

Also known as Baron Alexandre, Alexandre d'Esparvieu, Alexandre

An ancestor of Maurice, a historical figure in the family.

Monsieur Blancmesnil

minor

Also known as Blancmesnil, Monsieur de Blancmesnil

A friend of the family and a magistrate.

Hippolyte Flandrin

minor

Also known as Hippolyte

A painter, mentioned in discussions of art.

Octavie

minor

Also known as The young Octavie, the young Octavie, young Octavie

A young woman who appears briefly.

Madame Paulet de Saint-Fain

minor

Also known as de Saint-Fain

A society woman mentioned in the narrative.

Fulgence-Adolphe Bussart d'Esparvieu

minor

Also known as Fulgence, Fulgence-Adolphe

An ancestor of Maurice, a historical figure.

Inspector Grolle

minor

A police inspector investigating the theft of books.

Madame Mira

minor

Also known as Mira

A fortune-teller consulted by characters.

Lucifer

minor

The morning star, a fallen angel who appears in the story.

Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec

minor

Also known as Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec, Le Truc de Ruffec

A pompous and verbose nobleman.

Sophar

minor

A rebellious angel and companion to Arcade.

Eugène Delacroix

minor

Also known as Delacroix, Monsieur Eugène Delacroix, Monsieur Delacroix

The famous painter, mentioned as a historical figure.

Michel Guinardon

minor

Also known as Michel

The son of Père Guinardon, also a painter.

Monsieur Mignon

minor

Also known as Mignon

A bookseller involved in the plot.

General Milpertuis

minor

Also known as General d'Esparvieu

A military relative of the d'Esparvieu family.

Comte Desmaisons

minor

Also known as the Comte Desmaisons

A nobleman and acquaintance of the family.

Berthe

minor

A servant in the d'Esparvieu household.

Odile

minor

A young woman mentioned in passing.

Aline

minor

A servant or young woman in the story.

Comtesse de Gorce

minor

Also known as Madame la Comtesse de Gorce, the Comtesse de Gorce

A society woman who appears at events.

Monsieur de la Verdelière

minor

The husband of Madame de la Verdelière.

Madame Fillot-Grandin

minor

Also known as Madame d'Esparvieu

A relative or acquaintance of the family.

Abdiel

minor

A loyal angel who remains faithful to Heaven.

Judge Salneuve

minor

A judge involved in legal matters.

Léger-Massieu

minor

Also known as Massieu, Léger

A friend or acquaintance of the family.

Clodomir

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant.

Rose

minor

A servant or young woman in the story.

Marcelline

minor

A servant in the household.

Jeanne

minor

A young woman mentioned briefly.