Priests of the French Revolution

All of the world’s priests are in perfect agreement, wrote the atheist Baron d’Holbach in his 1768-published Théologie portative, that the trick of their profession consists in freely dispensing fear in the anticipation that hope might later be delivered at a cost. Ouch! And if the French Enlightenment’s leading lights often held men of the cloth in low esteem, many of their revolutionary successors rejoiced in actively diminishing the clergy’s role and number. Church domains were expropriated, some priests were forced into exile while others were marched to the scaffold and, during the revolution’s most radical moments, de-Christianisation was pursued. Later historians, wedded to secular readings of the events of 1789, have equally treated revolutionary France’s 115,000 priests with either suspicion or disregard. These men on the wrong side of history have only infrequently received a sympathetic hearing. Building upon the measured works of Bernard Plongeron, Timothy Tackett, Dale Van Kley, Suzanne Desan, Nigel Aston and John McManners, Joseph F. Byrnes, in this present book, attempts to redress this situation by focusing on a select sample of priests such as Claude Fauchet and Adrien Lamourette, who not only acclimatised well to changing times, but helped to forge the intellectual, social and political culture of the French Revolution. Through thousands of speeches, sermons and published addresses, these men endlessly recast Christianity to suit the moment and, indeed, spun revolutionary actions as events of faith. And, through their daily actions as reasoned, democratic and conciliatory men of God, they helped to pave the way for aspects of modern Christianity

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