French War Religion

Between 1789 and 1799, France went through one of the most dramatic events of modern European History: the French Revolution. The French population went through economic chaos, a dictatorship, and a civil war as well as other dramatic changes. During these years, the French decided to speak up for themselves and they became enemies of the French revolution. Internal enemies included the King, Louis XVI, Monarchists and Royalists and the Churches that were run by refractory priests. External threats were caused by aristocrats who had fled the Revolution; more specifically known as “émigrés”, Austria and Prussia. The latter were the more dangerous threats to the Revolution.

During the troubling time the French had to stick together. In the Vatican Archives it said, “In any kind of cultivation was still carried on in it could only be done close to cities, towns, or castles, no further ways that the watch could be seen, stationed on a high lookout, whence her could observe the robbers as they approached,” (doc 5). From the point of view of the farmers, they needed to stay safe from the English, but they could not just stop farming, so they became reliant the cities for protection. This means the cities, towns, and castle united with the farmers to keep France running by providing food. Also, The Treaty of Troyes created a short unification of France and England because it put King Henry of England in power of both France and

This period of fighting saw massacres of Huguenots (French Protestants) by the Catholic monarchs of France, most prominently during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 (where almost 30,000 French Protestants were killed across France in targeted assassinations and mob beatings). Eventually the wars would culminate with the Edict of Nantes in 1598, a treaty issued and signed by King Henry IV of France, who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and called for general tolerance.

Henry IV of France was able to act as a "fox" by evaluating what mattered more to him. When Henry converted to Catholosism out of being a Hugenot during the Saint Bartholomew 's Day Massacre, it was clear that he valued his own life over religion. Even when he coverted back to Calvinism afterwards, he soon relized his valued of being in power over religion would cause him to convert, once again, back into Catholism. “Paris is worth a Mass," he said as he gave into the Roman Catholic Church for the leadership of France. This value of state over religion made him a politique, believing that no religious truth was worth the ravages of cicil war. He kept France from futher civil war by issuing the Edict of Nantes which acknowledged Catholicism as th official religion of France but guaranteed the Hugenots the rights to worship. He was wise to recognize that tolerance can help establish peace in his nation and also to convert to Cathalosism because of their bigger population in France.

After seven years of being in war Paris had signed the treaty to end the war, which would help the Catholics a lot. After the Revolutionary generation many of the colonies came about after this period. Once France got the territory of Louisiana, this meant the Catholics in the thirteen colonies was eased from all fears. The major problem that Catholics faced at this time, was the ecclesiastical government. What this means for the Catholics, is that some treaties would be different, also searching for a bishop for the Catholics in colonial America. Once all of these problems started to occur, the people of the colonies started to worry about what was going to happen. The Catholic ecclesiastical and where is all began, lead them to say that

The church and the state had to contend with the growing influence of the Enlightenment and the need to strike a new balance with religion, a more utilitarian balance determined in large part by its own political rationalism. Power was held within the monarchy and the church. The monarchy of France and the Catholic Church were allies that were unbreakable. The King was the master of the temporal realm, while the Church under his protection ruled the spiritual realm. Kings derived their authority from God and stood immediately below him in rank. The monarchy had the support of the church and the church had the support of the monarchy. Power was based on morality and the church thrived on positive morality and the monarchy was proof of this morality. The balance between these two powers in France was equivalent to one another. The whole system

11) Concordat of 1801= This established a reconciliation with Pope Pius of the Catholic church. This recognized Catholicism as the main religion of the people of France. In order to have catholicism as the main religion the pope had to agree that the lands confiscated by France from the church would not be returned to them.

France defeated them, then formed plans to protect their new government, spread their revolutionary ideas (liberty, equality, and fraternity), and to punish the French émigrés who joined them. Most of their plans are considerably acceptable, but "punishing" the French émigrés likely means execution from the guillotine, which is, once again, taking it a step too far. An inside threat was a counterrevolution that broke out in the Vendée region in 1793 by those who were against the military draft (levée en masse) and France's attempts to abolish Christianity. If the revolutionary government was all for liberty and equality, then it's hypocritical that they would try to abolish Christianity if they believed in religious toleration, and the military drafts only limits one's freedom. Because of this, it resulted in the death of 80,000 French people on both sides (Source

Through history there have been devastating events during time periods, which eventually lead to positive outcomes, after all the sorrow comes the miracle everyone hoped for. As they say “there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.” As a matter of fact that is what happened during The Fourteenth century, it was one of the most devastating centuries, filled with horrible events, the outcome of those events led to the reshaping of Europe and Asia through trends and events. In Europe, during the Fourteenth Century, the population was soaring and there was surplus in the food supply.

Both the reformation and the “Age of Discovery” had large effects on society, culture, and politics throughout the 1500s. The reformation started in the early 1500s as the church was looking for a new identity. This new identity was thought as the people at the time wondering what exactly God wants from us to be able to be saved and go to heaven. There were two main religious ideas born in this time frame. Those were Lutherism and Calvinism.

At first, she feels the best way to combat the growing power and divisiveness betwixt the Ultra-Catholics and the Huguenots, is to use checks and balances to keep either from growing too great. When either side would temporarily grow in power, Catherine would lend the crown’s support to try to even them out. This more or less worked until the St. Bartholomew Massacre, from that point, France was thrown into religious warfare for many years. At this point, Catherine de Medici’s main concern was not for her country, but rather to keep her sons in power. This war would not be resolved until not only she was dead, but all three of her son’s as

Subsequently, the bloodiest and most violent of conflicts followed as well as the assassination of the duke of Guise, paving the way for the Peace of Saint-Germain-en Laye and ending the brutal fighting. Following these events, the Huguenots began to steadily gain influence, entertaining the notice of Catherine. Unhappy about the situation, Catherine set to convincing her son, Charles, that the Huguenots were planning a coup. Fearful of losing the crown, Catherine, with the help of the Guises, hastily ordered the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, causing the death of twenty thousand Protestants

King Louis XIV distrusted the Protestants and everything they stood for. Because of that, he revoked the Edict of Nantes and

French parishioners were coming out of church, they had found a large piece of paper from Switzerland posted on the church door condemning the mass. This led to the royal repression, where the French government went around arresting or killing as many French protestants as they could (Hunt, Martin, Rosenwein, Hsia & Smith, 2009).

Tension grew between the Catholic Church and France during the French Revolution, leading to a schism, which deeply devastated the Church’s economy. Pope Pius VII and Napoleon Bonaparte came into power as the French Revolution was ending. For different reasons they both saw the importance of restoring Roman Catholicism’s position in France. The Catholic Church’s initial support of Napoleon greatly affected both parties (O’Dwyer 12-14, 43, 49). This statement has led me to ask the following question: To what extent did the support of Napoleon affect the Church’s role as a political and economic power in France? In this paper I will argue against the traditional view that Napoleon’s contract with the Catholic Church was solely beneficial to