The French Revolution and the Catholic Church
Abolishing the Feudal Rights of the First Estate
Jan 31, 2009
It was Voltaire, whose writings in part contributed to the coming of the French Revolution, when asked what to do about the Church stated, “crush the infamous thing.” When the Revolution came in 1789, the Church was inevitably targeted as part of the old feudal regime that needed to be replaced. By 1792, the September Massacres saw the murders of hundreds of prisoners, many of whom were seminarians and clerics, including Church leaders like the Archbishop of Arles. The French Revolution was, in many ways, anti-Catholic.
The Catholic Church on the eve of the French Revolution
The French Catholic Church comprised the First Estate, 130,000 out of a population of twenty-three million. The clergy were exempt from state taxation, ran their own courts, collected a tithe, and held a monopoly on education. Immensely wealthy, the Church paid a yearly “free donation” to the state out of borrowed money. Owning one-tenth of the realm, the Church had full control over all official records.
At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, only one bishop out of the 135 in France came from a non-noble background. All of the other bishops had ties to the nobility, many of them coming out of the finest, oldest aristocratic families in France. The Church guarded its privileges jealously and was unassailable. Most of the local parish priests and the regular clergy, however, identified with the peasants and were frequently looked down upon by the Church hierarchy.
The Revolution Dissolves the Established Church
Immediately after the disbanding of the Estates General, the newly formed National Assembly, which included members of the First Estate that had crossed over, began to eliminate the feudal rights of the Church. Henceforth, clerics would be paid by the state and Church lands confiscated. Monasteries not involved in the public good were closed. In many ways, the actions of the Assembly paralleled those taken earlier by Austria’s Emperor Joseph II.
Ecclesiastical tithes were abolished and some religious orders disbanded. Because of the Church’s long identity with the nobility and absolute rule in France, the institution itself was attacked. Perceived as an extension of the aristocracy, the Church found itself in a vulnerable position. Offering to limit and give up some of its privileges, the Church was seen as attempting to avoid the same fate that inevitably awaited the monarchy and the Second Estate.
The Revolution Moves into the Reign of Terror
Under the leadership of Robespierre during the height of the Reign of Terror, Notre Dame Cathedral was turned into the Temple of Reason. The dechristianization of France was underway. Robespierre introduced the “Cult of the Supreme Being” that attempted to infuse a new moral universe based solely on the values of the revolution. Other leaders of the Revolution had earlier expressed anti-church feelings. San Just had written a treatise in which the Revolution besieged the very gates of heaven. Danton, responsible for the Paris September Massacres, relented in the aftermath and one expanation for his opposition to the excesses of the Reign of Terror is tied to a possible personal recommitment to the Catholic faith.
Although Robespierre was eventually executed and France moved to a new government under the Directory, the Church never regained its power or control. Even after signing a Concordat with Rome, Napoleon Bonaparte, during his coronation in Notre Dame in 1804, took the crown from Pope Pius VII and placed it on his head himself, symbolic of the independence from papal control.
Sources:
Olivier Bernier, Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood: The Mob, the Monarchy, and the French Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989).
Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War (HarperCollins, 2005).
Isser Woloch, The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994).
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