r/todayilearned • u/amateurfunk • 1d ago

TIL that during the height of the French Revolution, Notre Dame was rededicated to serve as a Temple of Reason in the course of Catholicism being banned in France.

https://artifactstravel.com/notre-dame-cathedral-french-revolution-temple-of-reason/
816 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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116

u/Substantial-Sea-3672 1d ago edited 1d ago

Dechristianization gets all the glory from the French Revolution but in my book it’s all about the Cult of the Supreme Being.

Robespierre literally building a mountain so he could then descend from it as a neo-Moses? That’s the height of the revolution.

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u/pic_omega 1d ago

Unfortunately, Reason did not prevail in the long term but eventually The Terror arrived (of which Robespierre was one of its architects and promoter) and of which, ironically, he was a victim. All so that after a time Napoleon was declared Emperor and reestablished the nobility and its titles, I wonder what Robespierre's reaction would have been if he could see it.

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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 22h ago

The nobility weren’t really re-established by Napoleon nor after the restoration.

They came back but they had to repurchase their lands and even after the restoration they never took part in politics again.

The French Revolution really was a bourgeois revolution that permanently transferred aristocratic power to bourgeois bureaucrats with a slight detour into some pretty radical territory.

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u/TheBashar 1d ago

What do you call Napoleon syndrome in a pre Napoleonic time?

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u/spinosaurs70 1d ago

The cult of the supreme being is the most 18th-century deist thing imaginable.

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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 1d ago

Allow me one nit to pick.

Robespierre presided over the “height of the French Revolution” in almost everyone’s incredibly varied estimations of the revolution and he actually scaled back dechristianization.

But for a TIL this is fine.

12

u/amateurfunk 1d ago

It does come down to how define "height of the revolution". In terms of bloodshed, the Reign of Terror was indeed not yet in full swing and worst was yet to come.

In terms of how revolutionary the ideas themselves were, maybe the time of the Cult of Reason was the one where they were pressing the boundaries the furthest - at least in terms of religion.

I am by no means an expert, but these are the impressions that I got when listening to the Revolutions podcast.

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u/DisillusionedBook 1d ago

One day I hope all religious buildings will find an actual use. Make them into museums of science and culture and learning (not just for organised brainwashing for mythology) or hospitals, shelters for the homeless, etc. It's what a supposed mythological god would want it it was "all good".

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u/Rebelgecko 1d ago

Notre Dame Museum of Euphoria 

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u/amateurfunk 1d ago

Tbf some of them - Notre Dame for instance - effectively are museums lol

At least that is my impression. I wonder how many tourists there are that visit Churches/Cathedrals like Notre Dame vs how many come as worshippers.

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u/Main-Vacation2007 1d ago

You are funny.

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u/DisillusionedBook 1d ago

I know. Unrealistic expectations in an age where hocus pocus still reigns is like that.

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u/BasilSerpent 2h ago

bro you're not cool

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u/DisillusionedBook 1h ago

oh no.

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u/BasilSerpent 1h ago

you can act all sarcastic but speaking as an atheist your attitude is fucking dogshit