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| Clock dial of the French Revolution, Photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional work of art of the late 18th/early 19th century (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Français : Inscription relative au culte de la Raison et de l'Être suprême sur un mur de l'Église d'Ivry-la-Bataille (1792-1794). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Maximilien Robespierre (6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The French
Revolution had given birth to many radical changes in France, but one of the
most fundamental for the hitherto Catholic nation was the
official rejection of
religion. The first major organized school of thought emerged under the
umbrella name of the Cult
of Reason. Advocated by extreme radicals like Jacques Hébert and Antoine-François
Momoro, the Cult of Reason distilled a mixture of largely atheistic views into an anthropocentric
philosophy. No gods at all were worshiped in the Cult – the guiding principle
was devotion to the abstract conception of Reason.[3]
This rejection of
all divinity appalled the rectitudinous Robespierre. Its offense was compounded
by the "scandalous scenes" and "wild masquerades"
attributed to its practice.[4] In late 1793, Robespierre delivered
a fiery denunciation of the Cult and its proponents[5] and proceeded to give his own
vision of proper Revolutionary religion. Devised almost entirely by
Robespierre, Le culte de l'Être suprême
was formally announced before the French National Convention
on 7 May 1794.[6]
Robespierre believed
that reason is only a means to an end, and the singular end is virtue. He sought to move beyond
simple deism (often described as Voltairean
by its adherents) to a new and, in his view, more rational devotion to the Godhead. The primary principles
of the Cult of the Supreme Being were a belief in the existence of a god and the immortality of the
human soul.[7] Though not inconsistent with
Christian doctrine, these beliefs were put to the service of Robespierre's
fuller meaning, which was of a type of civic-minded, public virtue he
attributed to the Greeks and Romans.[8] This type of virtue could only be
attained through active fidelity to liberty and democracy.[9] Belief in a living god and a higher
moral code, he said, were "constant reminders of justice" and thus
essential to a republican society.[10]
Robespierre used the
religious issue to publicly denounce the motives of many radicals not in his
camp, and it led, directly or indirectly, to the executions of Revolutionary
de-Christianisers like Hébert, Momoro, and Anacharsis Cloots.[4] The establishment of the Cult of
the Supreme Being represented the beginning of the reversal of the wholesale de-Christianisation
process that had been looked upon previously with official favor.[11] Simultaneously it marked the
apogee of Robespierre's power. Though in theory he was just an equal member of
the Committee
of Public Safety, Robespierre at this point possessed a national prominence
bordering on the imperial.[12]
To inaugurate the
new state religion, Robespierre declared that 20 Prairial Year II (8 June 1794)
would be the first day of national celebration of the Supreme Being, and future
republican holidays were to be held every tenth day – the days of rest (décadi) in the new French
Republican Calendar.[6] Every locality was mandated to hold
a commemorative event, but the event in Paris was designed on a massive scale.
The festival was organized by the artist Jacques-Louis David
and took place around a man-made mountain on the Champ de Mars.[13] Robespierre assumed full
leadership of the event, forcefully – and, to many, ostentatiously[14] – declaring the truth and
"social utility" of his new religion.[15]
The
Cult of the Supreme Being and its festival can be said to have contributed to
the Thermidorian
reaction and the downfall of Robespierre.[15] With his death at the guillotine on 28 July 1794,
the cult lost all official sanction and disappeared from public view.[16] It was officially banned by Napoleon Bonaparte with his Law on Cults of 18 Germinal, Year X.[17]
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