# The Revolt of the Angels — Character guide

> Key figures in The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France.

- [Maurice d'Esparvieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/maurice_desparvieu.md): 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, Maur
- [Arcade](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/arcade.md): 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 
- [Monsieur Julien Sariette](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/sariette.md): 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
- [Madame de la Verdelière](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/madame_de_la_verdelier.md): 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
- [Gilberte des Aubels](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/gilberte.md): 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 instigat
- [Prince Istar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/prince_istar.md): 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 spok
- [Père Guinardon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/pere_guinardon.md): 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, t
- [Théophile Belais](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/theophile_belais.md): 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 celest
- [Satan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/satan.md): 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 w
- [Zita](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/zita.md): 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 Nec
- [Zéphyrine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/zephyrine.md): An old servant in the d'Esparvieu household.
- [Ialdabaoth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/ialdabaoth.md): 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
- [Iahveh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/iahveh.md): 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 i
- [Abbé Patouille](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/abbe_patouille.md): 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 Ch
- [Gaétan d'Esparvieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/gaetan_desparvieu.md): 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 mistre
- [Nectaire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/nectaire.md): 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 
- [René d'Esparvieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/rene_desparvieu.md): Maurice's father, a respected magistrate.
- [Baron Max Everdingen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/max_everdingen.md): A German baron and friend of the d'Esparvieu family.
- [Archangel Michael](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/michael.md): The leader of the loyalist angels in Heaven.
- [Dionysus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/dionysus.md): The Greek god of wine, appearing as a character.
- [Léon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/leon.md): A young boy, possibly a servant or relative.
- [Baron Alexandre d'Esparvieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/baron_alexandre_desparvieu.md): An ancestor of Maurice, a historical figure in the family.
- [Monsieur Blancmesnil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/monsieur_blancmesnil.md): A friend of the family and a magistrate.
- [Hippolyte Flandrin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/hippolyte.md): A painter, mentioned in discussions of art.
- [Octavie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/octavie.md): A young woman who appears briefly.
- [Madame Paulet de Saint-Fain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/madame_paulet_de_saint_fain.md): A society woman mentioned in the narrative.
- [Fulgence-Adolphe Bussart d'Esparvieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters/fulgence_bussart_desparvieu.md): An ancestor of Maurice, a historical figure.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_revolt_of_the_angels_se/characters