Rachel Evans
The French Revolution was a period of mass murder, rape, and torture of Catholics. The revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, and nationalized Church property. By 1794, France's churches and religious orders were closed down and religious worship was suppressed. The French state confiscated Church properties and sold them at auction. The revolutionary government briefly mandated observance of the Cult of the Supreme Being in April 1794. The dechristianization campaign can be seen as the logical extension of the Enlightenment's materialist philosophies. The French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) was a period of civil infighting and military operations primarily between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). One of the most infamous events of the Wars of Religion was the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, when thousands of Huguenots were killed by Catholics.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Year | 1789 |
| Event | French Revolution |
| Number of Priests exiled | 30,000 |
| Number of Priests executed | Several hundred |
| Number of Churches closed, sold, destroyed or converted | 40,000 |
| Genocide location | Peasant Vendee region of the West of France |
| Estimated number of deaths in Vendee | 100,000-200,000 |
| Historical event | French Wars of Religion |
| Duration of French Wars of Religion | 1562-1598 |
| Number of deaths due to war, famine and disease | 2,000,000-4,000,000 |
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What You'll Learn
French Revolution and the Catholic Church
In 1789, the year the French Revolution broke out, Catholicism was the official religion of the French state. The French Catholic Church, known as the Gallican Church, recognised the authority of the Pope as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the Gallican Church had negotiated certain liberties that privileged the authority of the French monarch, giving it a distinct national identity characterised by considerable autonomy. France's population of 28 million was almost entirely Catholic, with full membership of the state denied to Protestant and Jewish minorities.
The French Revolution began with attacks on Church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy. As the largest landowner in the country, the Catholic Church controlled vast properties and collected compulsory tithes, which generated enormous income. The Church also kept the registry of births, deaths, and marriages and was the only institution that provided hospitals and education in most parts of the country, thus influencing all citizens.
On 10 October 1789, the National Constituent Assembly seized the properties and land held by the Catholic Church and decided to sell them to fund the assignat revolutionary currency. The assembly also abolished the tithes gathered by the Catholic clergy. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 proclaimed freedom of religion across France.
The revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, nationalised Church property, exiled 30,000 priests, and killed hundreds more. The Christian calendar was replaced with one reckoned from the date of the Revolution, and new forms of moral religion emerged, including the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being.
By 1794, France's churches and religious orders were closed down, and religious worship was suppressed. However, historians are divided over the strength of Catholicism in late eighteenth-century France. Some historians argue that the dechristianization campaign was a logical extension of the materialist philosophies of Enlightenment leaders such as Voltaire, while others argue that it provided an opportunity to unleash resentments against the Catholic Church and its clergy.
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Genocide of French Catholics
The French Revolution of 1789 saw the start of a campaign of dechristianisation, with the revolutionary authorities suppressing the Church, abolishing the Catholic monarchy, and nationalising Church property. This was driven by the Church's wealth and power, as the largest landowner in the country, and the perception of abuses of this power. The revolutionary government briefly mandated observance of the deistic Cult of the Supreme Being in April 1794.
By the end of the decade, approximately 30,000 priests had been exiled from France, and several hundred more were executed. Most parishes were left without priests and deprived of the sacraments. The revolutionary violence against Catholics was particularly brutal in the peasant Vendee region of western France, with estimates of the numbers killed ranging from 100,000 to 200,000.
The French state's persecution of Catholics during the Revolution can be seen as a form of genocide. This period of violence against Catholics was justified by the revolutionary ideology of the time, which sought to destroy the old world and remake a new one. The French Revolution was also a reaction to the previous power held by the Catholic Church in the country, where being French effectively meant being Catholic.
The French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) also saw religious persecution and violence, but this was primarily between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). One of the most infamous events of these wars was the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, when thousands of Huguenots were killed by Catholics in Paris.
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French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion were a series of eight conflicts between Protestant and Catholic factions in France from 1562 to 1598. The wars were sparked by the Massacre of Vassy in 1562, when Francis, the Duke of Guise, sent his men to disperse a Protestant service, resulting in the deaths of at least 50 worshippers. This event fuelled tensions between the two religious factions, with both sides blaming each other in propaganda campaigns.
The wars were characterised by periods of armed conflict and uneasy peace, with complex diplomatic negotiations and agreements followed by renewed fighting. The major engagements of the war occurred at Rouen, Dreux, and Orléans, with the Crown regaining control of Rouen and capturing Condé, the Huguenot leader. The Battle of Dreux in 1562 resulted in the capture of Condé by the Crown and the constable Montmorency by anti-royalists. The Siege of Orléans in February 1563 saw the death of Francis, the Duke of Guise, who was shot by the Huguenot Jean de Poltrot de Méré.
The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572 was another notorious episode, where Catholic mobs killed between 5,000 and 30,000 Protestants throughout France. The wars threatened the authority of the monarchy and severely damaged its power. The conflict concluded with the Protestant King Henry IV of France converting to Catholicism in 1593 and issuing the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to the Huguenots while maintaining Catholic sovereignty.
The French Wars of Religion resulted in the deaths of between two and four million people from violence, famine, or disease. While the wars formally ended with the Edict of Nantes, religious tensions continued to affect French politics and society for many years, with underlying divisions persisting between Catholics and Protestants.
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St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, which took place on 24/25 August 1572, was a massacre of French Huguenots (Protestants) in Paris. It was plotted by Catherine de' Medici and carried out by Roman Catholic nobles and other citizens. The massacre was the culmination of a series of events, including the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which ended the third War of Religion on 8 August 1570; the marriage between Henry III of Navarre and Margaret of Valois on 18 August 1572; and the failed assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny on 22 August 1572.
The Peace of Saint-Germain had put an end to three years of civil war between Catholics and Protestants, but this peace was fragile, as the more hardline Catholics refused to accept it. The strongly Catholic Guise family was out of favour at the French court, while the Huguenot leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, was readmitted into the king's council in September 1571. This caused outrage among staunch Catholics, but the queen mother, Catherine de' Medici, and her son, King Charles IX, supported peace and Coligny, conscious of the kingdom's financial difficulties and the Huguenots' military strength.
Admiral Coligny, a Huguenot leader, supported a war in the Low Countries against Spain as a means to prevent a resumption of civil war in France. King Charles IX was coming around to this idea in the summer of 1572. Catherine de' Medici, fearful of Coligny's growing influence over her son, approved a plot by the Catholic House of Guise to assassinate Coligny, whom they held responsible for the murder of François de Guise in 1563. On 18 August 1572, Catherine's daughter, Margaret of France, married the Huguenot Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France), and a large part of the Huguenot nobility came to Paris for the wedding.
On 22 August 1572, an attempt was made on Admiral Coligny's life, but he was only wounded. To placate the angry Huguenots, the government agreed to investigate the assassination attempt. Fearing discovery of her complicity, Catherine met secretly with a group of nobles at the Tuileries Palace to plot the extermination of the Huguenot leaders, who were still in Paris for the wedding festivities. Charles was persuaded to approve of the scheme, and on the night of 23 August, members of the Paris municipality were called to the Louvre and given their orders. Shortly before dawn on 24 August, the bell of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois began to toll and the massacre began.
The massacre continued for three days throughout Paris, but the king was unable to control the situation. In the affected cities, the loss to the Huguenot communities after the massacres was numerically far larger than those actually killed. In the following weeks, there were mass conversions to Catholicism, apparently in response to the threatening atmosphere for Huguenots in these cities. In Rouen, where some hundreds were killed, the Huguenot community shrank from 16,500 to fewer than 3,000, mainly as a result of conversions and emigration to safer cities or countries. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was one event in the series of civil wars between Roman Catholics and Huguenots that beset France in the late 16th century.
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Napoleon and the Catholic Church
During the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was subjected to brutal suppression. The revolutionary authorities abolished the Catholic monarchy, seized Church properties, exiled 30,000 priests, and executed several hundred more. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 proclaimed freedom of religion across France, and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790 subordinated the Catholic Church to the French government.
Napoleon came to power in 1799, ready to accommodate the continued presence of religious belief and practice in French society. He moderated the radical secularism of the French Revolution, but he also opposed the Church as a political power at various turns. He introduced the Concordat in conquered territories, bringing the Catholic Church in other countries under his rule.
Napoleon’s occupation of Rome in 1808 brought his relationship with the Pope to a breaking point, leading to the Pope's decision to excommunicate him. In retaliation, Napoleon had the Pope arrested and brought to France, where he remained a prisoner until 1814. Despite this, Napoleon attempted to bring the Catholic Church back into France, giving a gaudy ceremony to Pope Pius VI after his death in 1799.
In 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII negotiated the Concordat of 1801, an agreement that reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France and restored some of its civil status. While the Concordat restored some ties to the papacy, it largely favoured the interests of the French state. As part of the Concordat, Napoleon presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles.
During his exile on Saint Helena, Napoleon reconciled with the Catholic Church and asked for a chaplain, saying, "I was born in the Catholic religion. I wish to fulfill the duties it imposes and receive the succour it administers."
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Frequently asked questions
The French Revolution witnessed a campaign of dechristianization against Catholicism and all forms of Christianity. Revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, confiscated Church properties, and exiled 30,000 priests, killing several hundred more. The Christian calendar was replaced, and the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being emerged.
No, but there were mass murders, rapes, and torture of Catholics, especially in the peasant Vendee region of Western France, where estimates of deaths range from 100,000 to 200,000.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in pre-Revolution France, controlling vast properties and collecting compulsory tithes, which provided an enormous income. The Church also kept the registry of births, deaths, and marriages and was the only provider of hospitals and education in most parts of the country.
While the Revolution significantly weakened the Church's power, it did not eliminate Catholicism. By 1799, Napoleon was in power and accommodated the continued presence of religious belief and practice in French society.
