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The aim of a number of separate policies conducted by various governments of France during the French Revolution ranged from the appropriation by the government of the great landed estates and the large amounts of money held by the Catholic Church to the termination of Christian religious practice and of the religion itself. There has been much scholarly debate over whether the movement was popularly motivated or motivated by a small group of revolutionary radicals. These policies, which ended with the Concordat of 1801, formed the basis of the later and less radical laïcité policies.

The French Revolution initially began with attacks on Church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy, an action with which even many Christians could identify, since the Gallican Church held a dominant role in pre-revolutionary France. During a one-year period known as the Reign of Terror, the episodes of anti-clericalism became some the most violent of any in modern European history. The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, nationalized Church property, exiled 30,000 priests, and killed hundreds more. In October 1793, the Christian calendar was replaced with one reckoned from the date of the Revolution, and Festivals of Liberty, Reason, and the Supreme Being were scheduled. New forms of moral religion emerged, including the deistic Cult of the Supreme Being and the atheistic Cult of Reason, with the revolutionary government briefly mandating observance of the former in April 1794.

Religion and the Catholic Church under the monarchy

Before 1789

In 18th-century France, the vast majority of the population adhered to the Catholic Church, the only religion officially allowed in the kingdom since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Small minorities of French Protestants, mostly Huguenots and German Lutherans in Alsace, and Jews still lived in France. The Edict of Versailles, commonly known as the Edict of Tolerance, had been signed by Louis XVI on 7 November 1787. It did not give non-Catholics in France the right to openly practice their religions but only the rights to legal and civil status, which included the right to contract marriages without having to convert to the Catholic faith. At the same time, libertine thinkers had popularized atheism and anti-clericalism.

The Ancien Régime institutionalised the authority of the clergy in its status as the First Estate of the realm. As the largest landowner in the country, the Catholic Church controlled vast properties and extracted massive revenues from its tenants; the Church also had an enormous income from the collection of compulsory tithes. Since the Church kept the registry of births, deaths, and marriages and was the only institution that provided hospitals and education in most parts of the country, it influenced all citizens.

Between 1789 and 1792

A milestone event of the Revolution was the abolition of the privileges of the First and Second Estate on the night of 4 August 1789. In particular, it 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 in these terms:

Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.

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.

On 12 July 1790, the assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that subordinated the Catholic Church in France to the French government. It was never accepted by the Pope and other high-ranking clergy in Rome.

Fall of the monarchy in 1792

New policies of the revolutionary authorities

The programme of dechristianization waged against Catholicism, and eventually against all forms of Christianity, included:

• destruction of statues, plates and other iconography from places of worship
• destruction of crosses, bells and other external signs of worship
• the institution of revolutionary and civic cults, including the Cult of Reason and subsequently the Cult of the Supreme Being (spring 1794)
• the enactment of a law on 21 October 1793 making all nonjuring priests and all persons who harbored them liable to death on sight

An especially notable event that took place in the course of France’s dechristianization was the Festival of Reason, which was held in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November 1793.

The dechristianization campaign can be seen as the logical extension of the materialist philosophies of some leaders of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire, while for others with more prosaic concerns it provided an opportunity to unleash resentments against the Catholic Church (in the spirit of conventional anti-clericalism) and its clergy.

The Revolution and the Church

In August 1789, the state cancelled the taxing power of the Church. The issue of Church property became central to the policies of the new revolutionary government. Declaring that all Church property in France belonged to the nation, confiscations were ordered and Church properties were sold at public auction. In July 1790, the National Constituent Assembly published the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that stripped clerics of their special rights—the clergy were to be made employees of the state, elected by their parish or bishopric, and the number of bishoprics was to be reduced—and required all priests and bishops to swear an oath of fidelity to the new order or face dismissal, deportation or death.

French priests had to receive Papal approval to sign such an oath, and Pius VI spent almost eight months deliberating on the issue. On 13 April 1791, the Pope denounced the Constitution, resulting in a split in the French Catholic Church. Over fifty percent became abjuring priests ("jurors"), also known as "constitutional clergy", and nonjuring priests as "refractory clergy".

In September 1792, the Legislative Assembly legalized divorce, contrary to Catholic doctrine. At the same time, the state took control of the birth, death, and marriage registers away from the Church. An ever-increasing view that the Church was a counter-revolutionary force exacerbated the social and economic grievances and violence erupted in towns and cities across France.

In Paris, over a forty-eight-hour period beginning on 2 September 1792, as the Legislative Assembly (successor to the National Constituent Assembly) dissolved into chaos, three Church bishops and more than two hundred priests were massacred by angry mobs; this constituted part of what would become known as the September Massacres. Priests were among those drowned in mass executions (noyades) for treason under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Carrier; priests and nuns were among the mass executions at Lyons, for separatism, on the orders of Joseph Fouché and Collot d'Herbois. Hundreds more priests were imprisoned and made to suffer in abominable conditions in the port of Rochefort.

Anti-Church laws were passed by the Legislative Assembly and its successor, the National Convention, as well as by département councils throughout the country. Many of the acts of dechristianization in 1793 were motivated by the seizure of Church gold and silver to finance the war effort. In November 1793, the département council of Indre-et-Loire abolished the word dimanche (English: Sunday). The Gregorian calendar, an instrument decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, was replaced by the French Republican Calendar which abolished the sabbath, saints' days and any references to the Church. The seven-day week became ten days instead. It soon became clear, however, that nine consecutive days of work were too much, and that international relations could not be carried out without reverting to the Gregorian system, which was still in use everywhere outside of France. Consequently, the Gregorian Calendar was reimplemented in 1795.

Anti-clerical parades were held, and the Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel, was forced to resign his duties and made to replace his mitre with the red "Cap of Liberty". Street and place names with any sort of religious connotation were changed, such as the town of St. Tropez, which became Héraclée. Religious holidays were banned and replaced with holidays to celebrate the harvest and other non-religious symbols. Many churches were converted into "temples of reason", in which Deistic services were held. Local people often resisted this dechristianisation and forced members of the clergy who had resigned to conduct Mass again. Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety denounced the dechristianizers as foreign enemies of the Revolution, and established their own new religion. This Cult of the Supreme Being, without the alleged "superstitions" of Catholicism, supplanted both Catholicism and the rival Cult of Reason. Both new religions were short-lived. Just six weeks before his arrest, on 8 June 1794, the still-powerful Robespierre personally led a vast procession through Paris to the Tuileries garden in a ceremony to inaugurate the new faith. His execution occurred shortly afterward, on 28 July 1794.

By early 1795, a return to some form of religion-based faith was beginning to take shape and a law passed on 21 February 1795 legalized public worship, albeit with strict limitations. The ringing of church bells, religious processions and displays of the Christian cross were still forbidden.

As late as 1799, priests were still being imprisoned or deported to penal colonies. Persecution only worsened after the French army led by General Louis Alexandre Berthier captured Rome in early 1798, declared a new Roman Republic, and also imprisoned Pope Pius VI, who would die in captivity in Valence, France in August 1799. However, after Napoleon seized control of the government in late 1799, France entered into year-long negotiations with new Pope Pius VII, resulting in the Concordat of 1801. This formally ended the dechristianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French state.

Victims of the Reign of Terror totaled somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000. According to one estimate, among those condemned by the revolutionary tribunals about 8 percent were aristocrats, 6 percent clergy, 14 percent middle class, and 70 percent were workers or peasants accused of hoarding, evading the draft, desertion, rebellion, and other purported crimes. Of these social groupings, the clergy of the Catholic Church suffered proportionately the greatest loss.

Anti-Church laws were passed by the Legislative Assembly and its successor, the National Convention, as well as by département councils throughout the country. The Concordat of 1801 endured for more than a century until it was abrogated by the government of the Third Republic, which established a policy of laïcité on 11 December 1905.

Toll on the Church

Under threat of death, imprisonment, military conscription, and loss of income, about twenty thousand constitutional priests were forced to abdicate and hand over their letters of ordination, and six thousand to nine thousand of them agreed or were coerced to marry. Many abandoned their pastoral duties altogether. Nonetheless, some of those who had abdicated continued covertly to minister to the people.

By the end of the decade, approximately thirty thousand priests had been forced to leave France, and several hundred who did not leave were executed. Most French parishes were left without the services of a priest and deprived of the sacraments. Any non-juring priest faced the guillotine or deportation to French Guiana. By Easter 1794, few of France's forty thousand churches remained open; many had been closed, sold, destroyed, or converted to other uses.

Victims of revolutionary violence, whether religious or not, were popularly treated as Christian martyrs, and the places where they were killed became pilgrimage destinations. Catechising in the home, folk religion, syncretic and heterodox practices all became more common. The long-term effects on religious practice in France were significant. Many who were dissuaded from their traditional religious practices never resumed them.

Gallery

• Festival of the Supreme Being, 8 June 1794
• Notre Dame of Strasbourg turned into a Temple of Reason.

See also

• Persecution of Christians
• Christianity in France
• 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State
• People engaged in the campaign: Jacques Hébert, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, Joseph Fouché

Notes and references

1. ^ Tallett 1991, p. 1-17.
2. ^ Spielvogel 2006, p. 549.
3. ^ Tallett 1991, p. 1.
4. Collins, Michael (1999). The Story of Christianity. Mathew A Price. Dorling Kindersley. pp. 176–177. ISBN 978-0-7513-0467-1. At first the new revolutionary government attacked Church corruption and the wealth of the bishops and abbots who ruled the Church -- causes with which many Christians could identify. Clerical privileges were abolished ...
5. Kennedy, Emmet (1989). A Cultural History of the French Revolution. Yale University Press. p. 343. ISBN 9780300044263.
6. Helmstadter, Richard J. (1997). Freedom and religion in the nineteenth century. Stanford Univ. Press. p. 251. ISBN 9780804730877.
7. Heenan, David Kyle. Deism in France 1789-1799. N.p.: U of Wisconsin--Madison, 1953. Print.
8. Ross, David A. Being in Time to the Music. N.p.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. Print. "This Cult of Reason or Deism reached its logical conclusion in the French Revolution..."
9. Fremont-Barnes, p. 119.
10. Tallett, Frank Religion, Society and Politics in France Since 1789 pp. 1-17 1991 Continuum International Publishing
11. Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760-1815, p. 212, retrieved July 17, 2016
12. ^ Betros, Gemma (December 2010). "THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH". History Review (68): 16–21. ISSN 0962-9610.
13. Furet, François. "Night of August 4," in François Furet, and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1989) pp 107-114.
14. Compare Tallett (1991): "During the course of the year II much of France was subjected to a campaign of dechristianization, the aim of which was the eradication of Catholic religious practice, and Catholicism itself. The campaign, which was at its most intense in the winter and spring of 1793-94 comprised a number of different activities. These ranged from the removal of plate, statues and other fittings from places of worship, the destruction of crosses, bells, shrines and other 'external signs of worship', the closure of churches, the enforced abdication and, occasionally, the marriage of constitutional priests, the substitution of a Revolutionary calendar for the Gregorian one, the alteration of personal and place names which had any eccesiastical connotations to more suitably Revolutionary ones, through to the promotion of new cults, notably those of reason and of the Supreme Being."
15. ^ Latreille, A. (2002). "French revolution". New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. v. 5 (Second ed.). Thompson/Gale. pp. 972–973. ISBN 978-0-7876-4004-0.
16. Schaeffer, Francis A. (2005). How Should We Then Live (L'Abri 50th Anniversary ed.). pp. 120–122. ISBN 978-1581345360.
17. Lewis (1993, p. 96): "Many of the Parisian Sections eagerly joined in the priest-hunt...."
18. Lewis, Gwynne (1993). The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate. Historical Connections. Routledge. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-134-93741-7. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
19. ^ Vovelle 1991, p. 180, 182.
20. Shaw, Matthew (1 March 2001). "Reactions To The French Republican Calendar". Fr Hist. 15 (1): 6. doi:10.1093/fh/15.1.4. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
21. Segura González, Wenceslao (2012). La reforma del calendario (PDF) (in Spanish). EWT Ediciones. p. 42. ISBN 9788461617296. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 June 2019.
22. Horne, Thomas Hartwell; Davidson, Samuel (21 November 2013). An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Cambridge University Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-108-06772-0.
23. ^ Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, pp. 92–94.
24. Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2007). Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760-1815: A-L. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 237. ISBN 9780313334467. The cult was a deliberate attempt to counter the unsuccessful efforts at dechristianization, and the atheistic Cult of Reason, which reached its high point in the winter of the previous year.
25. ^ Harvey, Donald Joseph FRENCH REVOLUTION, History.com 2006 (Accessed 27 April 2007) Archived 14 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine
26. Lewis 1993, p. 96.

Further reading

In English

• Aston, Nigel. Religion and Revolution in France, 1780-1804 (Catholic University of America Press, 2000), pp 259–76
• Byrnes, Joseph F. Priests of the French Revolution: Saints and Renegades in a New Political Era (2014)
• Cooney, Mary Kathryn (2006). "'May the Hatchet and the Hammer Never Damage It!': The Fate of the Cathedral of Chartres during the French Revolution". Catholic Historical Review. 92 (2): 193–214. doi:10.1353/cat.2006.0129. S2CID 159565325.
• Desan, Suzanne (1988). "Redefining Revolutionary Liberty: The Rhetoric of Religious Revival during the French Revolution". Journal of Modern History. 60 (1): 2–27. doi:10.1086/243333. JSTOR 1880404. S2CID 153680938.
• Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), pp 21–32
• Gliozzo, Charles A. "The Philosophes and Religion: Intellectual Origins of the Dechristianization Movement in the French Revolution". Church History (1971) 40#3
• Kley, Dale K. Van (2003). "Christianity as casualty and chrysalis of modernity: the problem of dechristianization in the French Revolution". American Historical Review. 108 (4): 1081–1104. doi:10.1086/529789. JSTOR 10.1086/529789.
• Kley, Dale K. Van. The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791 (1996)
• Lewis, Gwynne. Life in Revolutionary France. London : New York : Batsford; Putnam, 1972. ISBN 978-0-7134-1556-8
• McManners, John. The French Revolution and the Church (Greenwood Press, 1969) . ISBN 978-0-313-23074-5
• Spielvogel, J.J. (2006). Western Civilization (Combined Volume ed.). Wadsworth. ISBN 978-0-534-64602-8.
• Tackett, Timothy. Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 (1986)
• Tallett, Frank (1991). "Dechristianizing France: The year II and the revolutionary experience". In Tallett, F.; Atkin, N. (eds.). Religion, Society and Politics in France Since 1789. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 1–28. ISBN 978-1-85285-057-9. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
• Vovelle, Michel (1991) , The revolution against the Church: From reason to the Supreme Being, translated by José, Alan, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, hdl:1811/24812, ISBN 0-8142-0577-1

In French

• La Gorce, Pierre de, Histoire Religieuse de la Révolution Française. 10. éd. Paris : Plon-Nourrit, 1912–5 v.
• Langlois, Claude, Timothy Tackett, Michel Vovelle and S. Bonin. Atlas de la Révolution française. Religion, 1770–1820, tome 9 (1996)

External links

• Chief clauses of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy

v t e French Revolution
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Significant civil and political events by year 1788 Day of the Tiles (7 Jun 1788) Assembly of Vizille (21 Jul 1788) 1789 What Is the Third Estate? (Jan 1789) Réveillon riots (28 Apr 1789) Convocation of the Estates General (5 May 1789) Death of the Dauphin (4 June 1789) National Assembly (17 Jun – 9 Jul 1790) Tennis Court Oath (20 Jun 1789) National Constituent Assembly (9 Jul – 30 Sep 1791) Storming of the Bastille (14 Jul 1789) Great Fear (20 Jul – 5 Aug 1789) Abolition of Feudalism (4–11 Aug 1789) Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (26 Aug 1789) Women's March on Versailles (5 Oct 1789) Nationalization of the Church properties (2 Nov 1789) 1790 Abolition of the Parlements (Feb–Jul 1790) Abolition of the Nobility (23 Jun 1790) Civil Constitution of the Clergy (12 Jul 1790) Fête de la Fédération (14 Jul 1790) 1791 Flight to Varennes (20–21 Jun 1791) Champ de Mars massacre (17 Jul 1791) Declaration of Pillnitz (27 Aug 1791) The Constitution of 1791 (3 Sep 1791) National Legislative Assembly (1 Oct 1791 – Sep 1792) 1792 France declares war (20 Apr 1792) Brunswick Manifesto (25 Jul 1792) Paris Commune becomes insurrectionary (Jun 1792) 10th of August (10 Aug 1792) September Massacres (Sep 1792) National Convention (20 Sep 1792 – 26 Oct 1795) First republic declared (22 Sep 1792) 1793 Execution of Louis XVI (21 Jan 1793) Revolutionary Tribunal (9 Mar 1793 – 31 May 1795) Reign of Terror (27 Jun 1793 – 27 Jul 1794) Committee of Public Safety Committee of General Security Fall of the Girondists (2 Jun 1793) Assassination of Marat (13 Jul 1793) Levée en masse (23 Aug 1793) The Death of Marat (painting) Law of Suspects (17 Sep 1793) Marie Antoinette is guillotined (16 Oct 1793) Anti-clerical laws (throughout the year) 1794 Danton and Desmoulins guillotined (5 Apr 1794) Law of 22 Prairial (10 Jun 1794) Thermidorian Reaction (27 Jul 1794) Robespierre guillotined (28 Jul 1794) White Terror (Fall 1794) Closing of the Jacobin Club (11 Nov 1794) 1795–6 Insurrection of 12 Germinal Year III (1 Apr 1795) Constitution of the Year III (22 Aug 1795) Directoire (1795–99) Council of Five Hundred Council of Ancients 13 Vendémiaire 5 Oct 1795 Conspiracy of the Equals (May 1796) 1797 Coup of 18 Fructidor (4 Sep 1797) Second Congress of Rastatt (Dec 1797) 1798 Law of 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798) 1799 Coup of 30 Prairial VII (18 Jun 1799) Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 Nov 1799) Constitution of the Year VIII (24 Dec 1799) Consulate
Revolutionary campaigns 1792 Verdun Thionville Valmy Royalist Revolts Chouannerie Vendée Dauphiné Lille Siege of Mainz Jemappes Namur 1793 First Coalition War in the Vendée Battle of Neerwinden Battle of Famars (23 May 1793) Expedition to Sardinia (21 Dec 1792 - 25 May 1793) Battle of Kaiserslautern Siege of Mainz Battle of Wattignies Battle of Hondschoote Siege of Bellegarde Battle of Peyrestortes (Pyrenees) Siege of Toulon (18 Sep – 18 Dec 1793) First Battle of Wissembourg (13 Oct 1793) Battle of Truillas (Pyrenees) Second Battle of Wissembourg (26–27 Dec 1793) 1794 Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies (24 Apr 1794) Second Battle of Boulou (Pyrenees) (30 Apr – 1 May 1794) Battle of Tourcoing (18 May 1794) Battle of Tournay (22 May 1794) Glorious First of June (1 Jun 1794) Battle of Fleurus (26 Jun 1794) Chouannerie Battle of Aldenhoven (2 Oct 1794) Siege of Luxembourg (22 Nov 1794 - 7 Jun 1795) 1795 Siege of Luxembourg (22 Nov 1794 - 7 Jun 1795) Peace of Basel 1796 Italian campaign (1796) Battle of Lonato (3–4 Aug 1796) Battle of Castiglione (5 Aug 1796) Battle of Theiningen Battle of Neresheim (11 Aug 1796) Battle of Amberg (24 Aug 1796) Battle of Würzburg (3 Sep 1796) Battle of Rovereto (4 Sep 1796) First Battle of Bassano (8 Sep 1796) Battle of Emmendingen (19 Oct 1796) Battle of Schliengen (26 Oct 1796) Second Battle of Bassano (6 Nov 1796) Battle of Calliano (6–7 Nov 1796) Battle of Arcole (15–17 Nov 1796) Ireland expedition (Dec 1796) 1797 Italian campaign (1797) Naval Engagement off Brittany (13 Jan 1797) Battle of Rivoli (14–15 Jan 1797) Battle of the Bay of Cádiz (25 Jan 1797) Treaty of Leoben (17 Apr 1797) Battle of Neuwied (18 Apr 1797) Treaty of Campo Formio (17 Oct 1797) 1798 French invasion of Switzerland (28 January – 17 May 1798) French Invasion of Egypt (1798–1801) Irish Rebellion of 1798 (23 May – 23 Sep 1798) Quasi-War (1798–1800) Peasants' War (12 Oct – 5 Dec 1798) 1799 Second Coalition (1798–1802) Siege of Acre (20 Mar – 21 May 1799) Battle of Ostrach (20–21 Mar 1799) Battle of Stockach (25 Mar 1799) Battle of Magnano (5 Apr 1799) Battle of Cassano (27–28 Apr 1799) First Battle of Zurich (4–7 Jun 1799) Battle of Trebbia (17–20 Jun 1799) Battle of Novi (15 Aug 1799) Second Battle of Zurich (25–26 Sep 1799) 1800 Battle of Marengo (14 Jun 1800) Convention of Alessandria (15 Jun 1800) Battle of Hohenlinden (3 Dec 1800) League of Armed Neutrality (1800–02) 1801 Treaty of Lunéville (9 Feb 1801) Treaty of Florence (18 Mar 1801) Algeciras campaign (8 Jul 1801) 1802 Treaty of Amiens (25 Mar 1802) Treaty of Paris (25 Jun 1802)
Military leaders France French Army Eustache Charles d'Aoust Pierre Augereau Alexandre de Beauharnais Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte Louis-Alexandre Berthier Jean-Baptiste Bessières Napoléon Bonaparte Guillaume Brune Jean François Carteaux Jean-Étienne Championnet Chapuis de Tourville Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine Louis-Nicolas Davout Louis Desaix Jacques François Dugommier Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Charles François Dumouriez Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino Louis-Charles de Flers Paul Grenier Emmanuel de Grouchy Jacques Maurice Hatry Lazare Hoche Jean-Baptiste Jourdan François Christophe de Kellermann Jean-Baptiste Kléber Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Jean Lannes Charles Leclerc Claude Lecourbe François Joseph Lefebvre Étienne Macdonald Jean-Antoine Marbot Marcellin Marbot François Séverin Marceau Auguste de Marmont André Masséna Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey Jean Victor Marie Moreau Édouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise Joachim Murat Michel Ney Pierre-Jacques Osten [fr] Nicolas Oudinot Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon Jean-Charles Pichegru Józef Poniatowski Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier Joseph Souham Jean-de-Dieu Soult Louis-Gabriel Suchet Belgrand de Vaubois Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno French Navy Charles-Alexandre Linois Opposition Austria József Alvinczi Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen Count of Clerfayt (Walloon) Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze (Swiss) Friedrich Adolf, Count von Kalckreuth Pál Kray (Hungarian) Charles Eugene, Prince of Lambesc (French) Maximilian Baillet de Latour (Walloon) Karl Mack von Leiberich Rudolf Ritter von Otto (Saxon) Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld Peter Vitus von Quosdanovich Prince Heinrich XV of Reuss-Plauen Johann Mészáros von Szoboszló (Hungarian) Karl Philipp Sebottendorf Dagobert von Wurmser Britain Sir Ralph Abercromby James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany Netherlands William V, Prince of Orange Prussia Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen Russia Alexander Korsakov Alexander Suvorov Andrei Rosenberg Spain Luis Firmin de Carvajal Antonio Ricardos
Other significant figures and factions Patriotic Society of 1789 Jean Sylvain Bailly Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt Isaac René Guy le Chapelier Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord Nicolas de Condorcet Feuillants and monarchiens Grace Elliott Arnaud de La Porte Jean-Sifrein Maury François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy Guillaume-Mathieu Dumas Antoine Barnave Lafayette Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth Charles Malo François Lameth André Chénier Jean-François Rewbell Camille Jordan Madame de Staël Boissy d'Anglas Jean-Charles Pichegru Pierre Paul Royer-Collard Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac Girondins Jacques Pierre Brissot Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière Madame Roland Father Henri Grégoire Étienne Clavière Marquis de Condorcet Charlotte Corday Marie Jean Hérault Jean Baptiste Treilhard Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve Jean Debry Olympe de Gouges Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux The Plain Abbé Sieyès de Cambacérès Charles-François Lebrun Pierre-Joseph Cambon Bertrand Barère Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot Philippe Égalité Louis Philippe I Mirabeau Antoine Christophe Merlin de Thionville Jean Joseph Mounier Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours François de Neufchâteau Montagnards Maximilien Robespierre Georges Danton Jean-Paul Marat Camille Desmoulins Louis Antoine de Saint-Just Paul Barras Louis Philippe I Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau Jacques-Louis David Marquis de Sade Georges Couthon Roger Ducos Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois Jean-Henri Voulland Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier Jean-Pierre-André Amar Prieur de la Côte-d'Or Prieur de la Marne Gilbert Romme Jean Bon Saint-André Jean-Lambert Tallien Pierre Louis Prieur Antoine Christophe Saliceti Hébertists and Enragés Jacques Hébert Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne Pierre Gaspard Chaumette Charles-Philippe Ronsin Antoine-François Momoro François-Nicolas Vincent François Chabot Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel François Hanriot Jacques Roux Stanislas-Marie Maillard Charles-Philippe Ronsin Jean-François Varlet Theophile Leclerc Claire Lacombe Pauline Léon Gracchus Babeuf Sylvain Maréchal Others Figures Charles X Louis XVI Louis XVII Louis XVIII Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien Louis Henri, Prince of Condé Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé Marie Antoinette Napoléon Bonaparte Lucien Bonaparte Joseph Bonaparte Joseph Fesch Joséphine de Beauharnais Joachim Murat Jean Sylvain Bailly Jacques-Donatien Le Ray Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes Talleyrand Thérésa Tallien Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target Catherine Théot Madame de Lamballe Madame du Barry Louis de Breteuil de Chateaubriand Jean Chouan Loménie de Brienne Charles Alexandre de Calonne Jacques Necker Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil List of people associated with the French Revolution Factions Jacobins Cordeliers Panthéon Club Social Club
Influential thinkers Les Lumières Beaumarchais Edmund Burke Anacharsis Cloots Charles-Augustin de Coulomb Pierre Claude François Daunou Diderot Benjamin Franklin Thomas Jefferson Antoine Lavoisier Montesquieu Thomas Paine Jean-Jacques Rousseau Abbé Sieyès Voltaire Mary Wollstonecraft
Cultural impact La Marseillaise Cockade of France Flag of France Liberté, égalité, fraternité Marianne Muscadin Bastille Day Panthéon French Republican calendar Metric system Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Cult of the Supreme Being Cult of Reason Temple of Reason Sans-culottes Phrygian cap Women in the French Revolution Incroyables and merveilleuses Symbolism in the French Revolution Historiography of the French Revolution Influence of the French Revolution Films

v t e Religious persecution and discrimination
By group	Atheism Exclusivism Baháʼí Faith Buddhism Christianity Persecution Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy Jehovah's Witnesses LDS or Mormon Protestantism Tewahedo Orthodoxy post–Cold War era Falun Gong Hinduism Persecution Untouchability Islam Persecution Ahmadiyya Shi'ism Sufism Sunnism minority Muslim Judaism Persecution Neopaganism Rastafari Sikhism Yazidism Zoroastrianism
Methods	Censorship Blood libel Communal violence Cultural genocide Deprogramming Desecration Domicide Discrimination Ethnic cleansing Ethnic conflict Extrajudicial killing Extrajudicial punishment Exclusivism Forced conversion Forced displacement Hate crime Iconoclasm Intolerance Pogrom Political violence Population cleansing Population transfer Sectarian violence Social cleansing Segregation State atheism State religion Terrorism Violence War
Events	Persecution of Canaanite Pagans (1210 BC-1200 BC) Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire (64–313) Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire (c. 324–c. 491) Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent (c.550–c. 1200) Yellow Turban Rebellion (c.184–c. 205) Battle of Tours (732) Rhineland massacres (1096) Jerusalem massacre (1099) Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent (643–1526) Inquisition (1184–1908) Massacre at Ayyadieh (1191) Northern Crusades (12th–16th cent.) Crusades against Christians (13th–15th cent.) Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain (1500–1526) European wars of religion (1522–1712) Ottoman–Habsburg wars (1526–1791) Goa Inquisition (1561–1812) French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) Expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614) Test Acts (1673–1829) Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction (1683–1922) Christianization of the Sámi people (1700s) French Revolutionary dechristianisation (1789–1801) Utah War (1857–1858) 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war (1860) Circassian genocide (1864) Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) Adana massacre (1909) Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) Greek genocide (1913–1922) Pontic Greek genocide Assyrian genocide (1914–1924) Armenian genocide (1915–1923) Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc (1917–1990) Soviet persecution (1922–1991) 1917–1921 1921–1928 1928–1941 1958–1964 1970–1987 legislation Šahovići massacre (1924) White Terror (Spain) (1936–1975) Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses (1933) The Holocaust (1939–1945) Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945) Communist Polish persecution (1945–1989) Communist Romanian persecution (1945–1989) Noakhali riots (1946) Direct Action Day (1946) 1946 Bihar riots (1946) Rawalpindi massacres (1947) Persecution of Hindus in Pakistan (1947–ongoing) Violence against Muslims in India (1947–ongoing) Violence against Hindus in independent India (1947–ongoing) 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight (1948) Jewish exodus from the Muslim world (1948–1980) Antireligious campaigns in China (1949–ongoing) Persecution of Tibetans (1950–ongoing) Exodus of Turks from Bulgaria (1950) Religious violence in Nigeria (1953–ongoing) Istanbul pogrom (1955) Buddhist crisis (1963) Huế Phật Đản shootings (1963) Thích Quảng Đức (1963) Xá Lợi Pagoda raids (1963) Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) Four Olds (1966) Famen Temple (1966) Bangladesh genocide (1971) Persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh (1971–ongoing) Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) Cambodian genocide (1975–1979) 1984 anti-Sikh riots (1984) Revival Process (1984–1989) Big Excursion (1989) Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus (1990) Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001) Ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War (1992–1996) Bosnian genocide (1995) War crimes in the Kosovo War (1999) Walisongo school massacre (2000) Kosheh massacres (2000) September 11 attacks (2001) 2002 Gujarat riots (2002) South Thailand insurgency (2004–ongoing) Boko Haram insurgency (2009–ongoing) Maspero demonstrations (2011) Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh (2013–2016) Yazidi genocide (2014–2017) Genocide of Christians by ISIL (2014–ongoing) Iraqi Turkmen genocide (2014–2017) Persecution of Uyghurs in China (2014–ongoing) Rohingya genocide (2016–ongoing) Christchurch mosque shootings (2019) 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings (2019) 2020 Delhi riots (2020) 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel (2023) 2024 Istanbul church shooting Crocus City Hall attack (2024)
Religion

• Religion and the French Revolution
• Anti-Christian sentiment in France
• Anti-Catholicism in France
• Anti-clericalism
• Human rights abuses in France
• Atheism in France
• Secularism in France
• 18th-century Catholicism
• Antitheism
• Persecution of Catholics
• Destruction of religious buildings and structures
• Christianization
• Attacks on churches in France