1. Dechristianization according to Aulard was not prompted by the ideas of the philsophes, but by the need for national defense. He wrote: “If, for example, they pretended to destroy Christianity, it is not because Voltaire had spoken of “crushing the infamous” … it is because the Catholic priest was conspiring with the enemy from the outside.” See Aulard, Alphonse, Le Culte de la raison et le culte de l'être suprême 1793–1794 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1892), pp. 14–15Google Scholar. Peter Gay viewed the Enlightenment as a triumph of neo-paganism. See Gay, , The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York: A. Knopf, 1966), I, 3–20.Google Scholar

2. Anacharsis Cloots was a member of the National Convention in 1792 and a major promotor of the Cult of Reason in an attempt to replace traditional Christianity. Jacques René Hébert was the famed anti-religious editor of Le Père Duchesne, spokesman of the sans-culottes, and fostered an intense anti-Christian campaign in the Autumn 1793. Pierre Chaumette was a social reformer, staunch promotor of the Cult of Reason and procurator-general of the Paris Commune in 1792 which launched a policy of secularization. See my article “The Secularization Policies of the Paris Commune, 1792,” Cithara, VIII (05, 1969), 37–46.Google Scholar

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5. Constructive deism is a deistic body of thought concerned principally with the construction of a rational explanation of man's relation to the universe and to God. If, on the other hand, the principal concern is to destroy the traditional Christian conception of revelation as a genuine and special manifestation of God to man, it is called “critical deism.” See Lauer, Rosemary, The Mind of Voltaire (Baltimore: Newman Press, 1961), p. vii.Google Scholar

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8. Voltaire, , Oeuvres complètes, XXIV, 453–454Google Scholar. In an early poem, Épître à Uranie (1722), Voltaire attacked the Christian God. See Ibid., IX, 364.

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11. Ibid., II, 447–448.

12. There has been much controversy in regard to the interpretation of écrasez l'infâme. Four distinct interpretations have appeared, that is, fanaticism, Catholicism, Christianity, and religion. For detailed account of these different views, see Gay, , Voltaire's Politics, pp. 239–249Google Scholar, and the Portable Voltaire, ed. Ben Redman, (New York: Viking Press, 1949), pp. 24–27.Google Scholar

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15. Ibid., p. 4. See Pomeau, , La Religion de Voltaire, p. 452Google Scholar, who emphasized that the Civil Constitution of the Clergy incorporated Voltairian reforms.

16. Marcel Reinhard is a contemporary French historian and former Director of the Institute of French Revolutionary Studies at the Sorbonne. See Reinhard, MarcelReligion, Révolution et contre-révolution (Paris: Centre de documentation universitaire, 1962), II, 145–146.Google Scholar

17. The principal theme of this play was the deception played by Voltaire's secretary, La Fortune, on the priest Abbé Gautier. The secretary disguised himself as Voltaire, who was on the brink of death. The dying man confessed to Abbé Gautier that he no longer advocated deistic beliefs, but wanted to re-enter the Church. The Abbé, after absolving La Fortune, and believing that it was Voltaire, declared that God and religion had finally conquered. When the Abbé and the curate of St. Sulpice came to congratulate Voltaire for his return to the faith, Voltaire denounced them, unaware of the deception perpetrated by his secretary. In the closing scene of the play when Voltaire was informed of his secretary's trickery, he exclaimed, “I die content, the priests are deceived.” See Cloots, Jean-Baptiste, Voltaire triomphant ou les prêtres deçus (Paris, 1778), pp. 272–278.Google Scholar

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20. Ibid., XXVI, 353. See Letter dated August 19, 1768, Vernes, Jacob in Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XXVI (1929), 196.Google Scholar

21. Aulard, , Le Culte de la raison, p. 5Google Scholar. Hébert praised Voltaire as the destroyer of fanaticism. See Jacques René Hébert, Le Chien et le chat, no. 4. For Voltaire's influence on Hébert's view of Christ as a sans-culotte, see Le Pēre Duchesne, nos. 15, 53, 244, 253, 307; Jacob, Louis, Le Pére Duchesne (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), p. 233Google Scholar; and Mater, Daniel, Jacques RenéHébert, l'auteur de Père Duchesne, avant la journée du 10 août 1792 (Bourges, 1888), pp. 2–21.Google Scholar

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27. A notable example was his speech given to the National Convention in celebration of the end of slavery. See Discours prononcé par le citoyen Chaumette au nom de la Commune de Paris. Le Décadi 30 pluviôse l'an II de la République Française une et indivisible, à la fête célébrée á Paris, en réjouissance de l'abolition de l'esciavage, p. 7. See also Braesch, Fritz, Papiers de Chaumette (Paris: Sociéte de l'histoire de Ia Révolution française, 1908), pp. 76, 80–81, 87, 91–93.Google Scholar

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41. Ibid., pp. 341–342.

42. Palmer, Robert R., Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth Century France (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1939), p. 68Google Scholar. Like Voltaire, Rousseau made a distinction between natural and revealed religions. See Rousseau, pp. 310, 322, 373. Wright, Ernest, The Meaning of Rousseau (London: Oxford University Press, 1929), p. 115.Google Scholar

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