Before 1789

In 18th-century France, the vast majority of the population adhered to the Catholic Church, the only religion officially allowed in the kingdom since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Small minorities of French Protestants (mostly Huguenots and German Lutherans in Alsace) and Jews still lived in France. The Edict of Versailles,^[9] commonly known as the Edict of Tolerance, had been signed by Louis XVI on 7 November 1787. It did not give non-Catholics in France the right to openly practice their religions but only the rights to legal and civil status, which included the right to contract marriages without having to convert to the Catholic faith. At the same time, libertine thinkers had popularized atheism and anti-clericalism.

The ancien régime institutionalised the authority of the clergy in its status as the First Estate of the realm. As the largest landowner in the country, the Catholic Church controlled vast properties and extracted massive revenues from its tenants;^[10] the Church also had an enormous income from the collection of compulsory tithes.^[10] Since the Church kept the registry of births, deaths, and marriages and was the only institution that provided hospitals and education in most parts of the country, it influenced all citizens.

Between 1789 and 1792

A milestone event of the French Revolution was the abolition of the privileges of the First and Second Estate on the night of 4 August 1789. In particular, it abolished the tithes gathered by the Catholic clergy.^[11]

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 proclaimed freedom of religion across France in these terms:

Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.

On 10 October 1789, the National Constituent Assembly seized the properties and land held by the Catholic Church and decided to sell them to fund the assignat revolutionary currency. On 12 July 1790, the assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that subordinated the Catholic Church in France to the French government. It was never accepted by the Pope and other high-ranking clergy in Rome.

Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793

After the insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, there was a decisive turn away from the revolution's original principles of religious freedom, and in the late summer of 1793 dechristianization evolved into what Johnathan Israel describes as a "repressive, vandalistic, inquisitorial movement".^[16] A major spasm of dechristianization broke out during the autumn with many of the acts of dechristianization in 1793 being motivated by the seizure of Church gold and silver to finance the war effort.^[17] In November the département council of Indre-et-Loire abolished the word dimanche (English: Sunday).^[18] The Gregorian calendar, an instrument decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, was replaced by the French Republican calendar which abolished the sabbath, saints' days and any references to the Church. The seven-day week became ten days instead.^[19] It soon became clear, however, that nine consecutive days of work were too much, and that international relations could not be carried out without reverting to the Gregorian system, which was still in use everywhere outside of France. Consequently, the Gregorian calendar was reimplemented in 1795.^[20]

Anti-clerical parades were held, and the Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel, was forced to resign his duties and made to replace his mitre with the red "Cap of Liberty". Street and place names with any sort of religious connotation were changed, such as the town of Saint-Tropez, which became Héraclée. Religious holidays were banned and replaced with holidays to celebrate the harvest and other non-religious symbols. Many churches were converted into "temples of reason", in which deistic services were held.^{[21][13][2][1]} Local people often resisted this dechristianisation and forced members of the clergy who had resigned to conduct mass again. Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety denounced the dechristianizers as foreign enemies of the revolution and established their own religion. This Cult of the Supreme Being, without the alleged "superstitions" of Catholicism,^[22] supplanted both Catholicism and the rival Cult of Reason. Both new religions were short-lived.^[23][22] Just six weeks before his arrest, on 8 June 1794, the still-powerful Robespierre personally led a vast procession through Paris to the Tuileries garden in a ceremony to inaugurate the new faith. His execution occurred shortly afterward, on 28 July 1794.^[18]

Concordat of 1801

By early 1795, a return to some form of religion-based faith was beginning to take shape, and a law passed on 21 February 1795 legalized public worship, albeit with strict limitations. The ringing of church bells, religious processions and displays of the Christian cross were still forbidden. As late as 1799, priests were still being imprisoned or deported to penal colonies. Persecution only worsened after the French army led by General Louis Alexandre Berthier captured Rome in early 1798, declared a new Roman Republic, and also imprisoned Pope Pius VI, who died in captivity. However, after Napoleon seized control of the government in late 1799, France entered into year-long negotiations with Pope Pius VII, resulting in the Concordat of 1801. This formally ended the dechristianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French state.

Victims of the Reign of Terror totaled somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000. According to one estimate, among those condemned by the revolutionary tribunals about 8 percent were aristocrats, 6 percent clergy, 14 percent middle class, and 70 percent were workers or peasants accused of hoarding, evading the draft, desertion, rebellion, and other purported crimes.^[24] Of these social groupings, the clergy of the Catholic Church suffered proportionately the greatest loss.^[24]

Anti-Church laws were passed by the Legislative Assembly and its successor, the National Convention, as well as by département councils throughout the country. The Concordat of 1801 endured for more than a century until it was abrogated by the government of the Third Republic, which established a policy of laïcité on 11 December 1905.

Destruction of monasteries

The revolution saw the widespread dissolution and destruction of many French monasteries, as revolutionary authorities sought to suppress religious institutions and confiscate their wealth.^[26] Many monastic buildings were seized, looted, repurposed for secular use, or demolished entirely. Orders such as the Benedictines, Cistercians, Franciscans, and Carmelites were particularly affected.^[27]