Just Give Me a Reason: Notre-Dame during the Revolution

Just Give Me a Reason

By Cory Williams

The first state-sponsored atheistic religion. Sounds fun right? Well maybe for about 4 months, which is roughly how long the Cult of Reason lasted. Occurring at the height of the revolution, this was France’s attempt to rid the country of Catholicism, a religion they deemed to be too entwined with the monarchy and too controlling over the people. The replacement? A religion based on the Revolutionary ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (freedom, equality, and brotherhood). Their guiding principle was to exercise reason and use truth and liberty to obtain perfection. How exactly does one going about doing that you ask? Well first, you jail and then murder a large number of catholic priests. Once that’s cleared up, you create a whole new calendar consisting of 10-day weeks to rid time of any religious influence. Then of course you desecrate the churches, ridding them of religious imagery and any valuables and renaming them Temples of Reason. Naturally, this all ends with a bacchanalia complete with fire, hymns, opera singers dressed like the Goddess of Reason, girls dancing, forcing surviving priests and other heads of the catholic church to denounce their religion, and of course a large paper mache mountain. Seems reasonable enough, no?

The cult of Reason - Feast of Reason. 1793. Anonymous.  Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

No church was safe during this period, least of all Notre-Dame. It was a symbol of both the monarchy and Christianity, the two last things you wanted to be associated with during the French Revolution. In the fall of 1793, France’s new government called for the desecration of churches across the country and the people descended onto Notre Dame. Altarpieces were ruined, stained glass windows broken, and hymnals burned by the hundreds alongside plaster and wood statues of various religious figures. Gold and silver ornaments were seized by the government or simply pocketed by the rioters. With the exception of one, the largest one, the bells of the cathedral were melted down and turned into cannonballs. The outside of the cathedral didn’t fare much better. Most, if not all, of the works that decorate the cathedral’s west facade were destroyed. All 22 of the biblical kings depicted in the Gallery of Kings were beheaded in a direct act against both Christianity and the monarchy. Their bodies were reduced to rubble and left out in the square where they were used as public bathrooms. The heads were eventually discovered in 1977 during an excavation. In the end, once everyone had mellowed out a little and Notre-Dame was but a shell of its former self, in an apparent attempt to make it clear what this was now the home of, the words “To Philosophy” were carved over the entrance. And just like that, the short-lived age of reason was born.

Revolutionary Inscriptions on the Church of Saint Martin at Ivry-la-Bataille.  Tibboh, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

It was out with the old and in with the new. To celebrate the dechristianization of France and inaugurate their new non-religious religion, the so-called Feast of Reason was held on 20th of Brumaire, Year II, or November 10, 1793 as we know it. While celebrations were held across the country, the celebration within Notre-Dame was by far the largest. The event was meant to mock Catholic rituals while also suggesting that people should worship the ideals of reason, philosophy, and man himself. The feast started reasonably enough, with tables piled high with food and drink and of course the construction of a paper mache mountain in the nave of the cathedral. This faux mountain was topped with a large Greek temple dedicated to philosophy and decorated with busts of various philosophers. At the base of the mountain was an altar dedicated to reason, and in front of that the Torch of Truth. Women in Roman style gowns and tri-colored sashes carried torches up and down the mountain while an opera singer dressed as the Goddess of Reason bowed to the torch before having a seat among a bed of flowers and plants. Then as the Goddess lay in her bed of flowers, revelers filed through the cathedral and kissed her hand. The singer, said to be the wife of Antoine-Francois Momoro (a founding father of the Cult of Reason) was described by the historian Thomas Carlyle as being the best of all the Goddesses of Reason - despite having what he called defective teeth.

Charles Louis Müller, The Cult of the Goddess of Reason, 1880.  Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From here, things took a bit of a turn. A handful of special guests were also asked (or forced rather) to participate in the pageantry. The bishop of Paris and numerous clergy members had to publicly renounce their beliefs and jobs within the Catholic church and declare that any public worship was to be solely of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. Children also joined in on the festivities, and much to the delight of the public, got drunk. By the end of the night, women were reportedly wearing the vestments of priests (if anything at all) while they danced the Carmagnole, a celebratory dance created during the Revolution. If you’ve ever been to an art school Halloween party consisting mostly of drama majors, you probably have a pretty good idea of what this was all like.

Heads of the Kings from Notre-Dame, now at the Cluny Museum. Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In the light of day, reactions to this celebration were split among members of the new government. Maximilien Robespierre, a major head of the new government and for a very brief time president, was particularly upset by it. He had the leaders of the religion arrested and sent to the guillotine, effectively ending the Cult of Reason. He then replaced it with his own religion, The Cult of the Supreme Being. This was like the Cult of Reason, but with more god and less destruction and debauchery. It even had its own major celebration which consisted of, you guessed it, a large fake mountain. However, by July of 1794, Robespierre was sent to the guillotine and thus ended the Cult of the Supreme Being. For good measure, Napoleon banned both religions in 1801 and like the guillotine to a member of the bourgeois, brought an end to both the Cult of Reason, the Cult of the Supreme Being, and celebrations consisting of large, paper mache mountains. How very reasonable!

Sources:

Erin Blakemore. “The Notre-Dame Cathedral Was Nearly Destroyed By French Revolutionary Mobs.” History, August 15, 2019.

Thomas Carlyle, . The French Revolution: A History. New York: Modern Library, 2002

John Robson. “Today in History: French Revolution Swaps Churches for ‘Temples of Reason’” Directed by John Robson. November 10, 2016. Video, 4:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c47vkgnnAYk

Geri Robson. “The Festival of Reason During the French Revolution.” November 9, 2016.