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The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
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Yes, you can access Loss in French Romantic Art, Literature, and Politics by Jonathan P. Ribner in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Art & European Art. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Merely one year before First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte reestablished Catholicism in France, visitors to the Salon of 1800 could view a remarkable example of contempt for the nationâs Christian heritage. Louis-François Petit-Radel (1739â1818), an architect with the title of inspector general of civil structures, exhibited a guide to the âDestruction of a Church in the Gothic Style, by Means of Fireâ:
In order to minimize the dangers which this kind of operation entails, the piers are to be hollowed, near their bases, at a height of two stone courses. As stones are removed, half their volume is replaced by dry wood. This is continued throughout. Kindling is then inserted, and fire set to the wood. When enough of the wood has burned, it gives way under the weight of the masonry, and the whole structure collapses in less than ten minutes.1
This dispassionate language, so at odds with its latent fury, was of a piece with the detachment of the architect, whose entry above was accompanied by two othersâan interior of an Egyptian temple and a Roman gallery leading up to a naumachia (i.e., an arena in which naval battles were staged). As noted in the Salon guidebook: âThe author wished to present, in these three pictures, the parallel between Roman, Egyptian, and Gothic architecture.â2
In the year that Petit-Radelâs leveling procedure was exhibited in the Salon, it was successfully tested on the early fourteenth-century Parisian church of Saint-Jean-en-GrĂšve in the parish of the HĂŽtel-de-Ville. Taken out of ecclesiastical service in 1790, the church was demolished (1797â1800). Its demolition was recorded by the preeminent specialist in ruins, Hubert Robert (1733â1808; Figure 1.2).6
In view of this persecution, it is hardly surprising that the clerical corps was decimated during the 1790s. As many as 20,000 of the approximately 115,000 priests active before the Revolution are believed to have abandoned their ministry; another 30,000 either emigrated or were deported.14 That so many managed to hold on speaks to the resilience of worship, whose imperatives are no less universal than those of sports, music, and picture making. De-Christianization met strong popular resistance, and the downfall of the radicals led by Maximilien Robespierre (1758â94) heralded a Catholic revival strengthened by the revolutionary ideals of popular sovereignty and religious liberty.15 Nor was the Reign of Terror uniformly hostile to religion. Robespierre detested atheism, advocated religious tolerance, and, in accord with revolutionary precedent, venerated the Supreme Beingâreference to whom was included in each iteration of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen heading the Revolutionâs three ephemeral constitutions.16