Editing Persecution of Christians (section)

===French Revolution===
{{Main|Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution|Revolt in the Vendée}}
[[File:MassacrePrincessLamballe.jpg|thumb|upright=1.24|[[September massacres]], 1792]]
The Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution is a conventional description of a campaign, conducted by various [[Robespierre]]-era governments of France beginning with the start of the [[French Revolution]] in 1789, to eliminate any symbol that might be associated with the past, especially the [[Monarchy of France|monarchy]].

The program included the following policies:<ref>Latreille, A. FRENCH REVOLUTION, New Catholic Encyclopedia v. 5, pp. 972–973 (Second Ed. 2002 Thompson/Gale) {{ISBN|0-7876-4004-2}}</ref><ref>Spielvogel, Jackson [https://books.google.com/books?id=ni4PSpOxb6MC Western Civilization: Combined Volume] p. 549, 2005
Thomson Wadsworth</ref><ref name="google">{{Cite book |last1=Tallett |first1=Frank | chapter= Dechristianizing France: The year II and the revolutionary experience | pages=1–28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aL4lsWdd-rAC |title=Religion, Society and Politics in France Since 1789 |editor1-last= Tallett | editor1-first= Frank | editor2-last=Atkin |editor2-first=Nicholas |date=1991 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-85285-057-9}}</ref>{{rp|1}}
* the deportation of clergy and the condemnation of many of them to death,
* the closing, [[desecration]] and pillaging of churches, removal of the word "saint" from street names and other acts to banish Christian culture from the public sphere
* removal of statues, plates, and other iconography from places of worship
* destruction of crosses, bells and other external signs of worship
* the institution of revolutionary and civic cults, including the [[Cult of Reason]] and subsequently the [[Cult of the Supreme Being]],
* the large-scale destruction of religious monuments,
* the outlawing of public and private worship and religious education,
* forced marriages of the clergy,
* forced abjuration of priesthood, and
* the enactment of a law on 21 October 1793 making all nonjuring priests and all persons who harbored them liable to death on sight.
[[File:Fusillades de Nantes.jpg|thumb|upright=1.24|Mass shootings at Nantes, 1793]]
The climax was reached with the celebration of the Goddess "Reason" in [[Notre-Dame de Paris]], the Parisian cathedral, on 10 November.

Under threat of death, imprisonment, military conscription or loss of income, about 20,000 constitutional priests were forced to abdicate or hand over their letters of ordination and 6,000&nbsp;– 9,000 were coerced to marry, many ceasing their ministerial duties.<ref name="google"/>{{rp|10}} Some of those who abdicated covertly ministered to the people.<ref name="google" />{{rp|10}} By the end of the decade, approximately 30,000 priests were forced to leave France, and thousands who did not leave were executed.<ref>{{ cite book | last= Lewis | first= Gwynne | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=VjXHmc6Z5ZcC&dq=dechristianisation+of+france+during+the+french+revolution&pg=PA45 | title= The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate | page=96 | date= 1993 | publisher=Routledge | isbn = 0-415-05466-4}}</ref> Most of France was left without the services of a priest, deprived of the [[sacraments]] and any nonjuring priest faced the [[guillotine]] or deportation to [[French Guiana]].<ref name="google"/>{{rp|11}}

The March 1793 conscription requiring [[Vendée|Vendeans]] to fill their district's quota of 300,000 enraged the populace, who took up arms as "The Catholic Army", "Royal" being added later, and fought for "above all the reopening of their parish churches with their former priests."<ref name="Jones-52-53">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=buHXFDFdeoQC|title=Resisting Rebellion|isbn=9780813191706 |last1=Joes |first1=Anthony James |date=2006 | publisher= University Press of Kentucky | pages= 52–53 }}</ref> 
 
With these [[Mass murder|massacres]] came formal orders for forced evacuation; also, a '[[scorched earth]]' policy was initiated: farms were destroyed, crops and forests burned and villages razed. There were many reported atrocities and a campaign of mass killing universally targeted at residents of the [[Vendée]] regardless of combatant status, political affiliation, age or gender.<ref>{{cite web|year=2006|title=Jones, Adam Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction|url=http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf|publisher=Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers Forthcoming|page=7|access-date=27 October 2008|archive-date=10 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010110108/http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> By July 1796, the estimated Vendean dead numbered between 117,000 and 500,000, out of a population of around 800,000.<ref>{{cite web|title=Three State and Counterrevolution in France by Charles Tilly|url=http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft2h4nb1h9&doc.view=content&chunk.id=d0e1419&toc.depth=1&anchor.id=0&brand=eschol|access-date=29 June 2011|publisher=cdlib.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Furlaud|first1=Alice|date=9 July 1989|title=Vive la Contre-Revolution!|work=The New York Times|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=950DE1DC123AF93AA35754C0A96F948260}}</ref><ref>{{Cite periodical |last=McPhee| first= Peter|url=https://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/mcphee3.html | title= Review of Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120420184315/http://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/mcphee3.html|archive-date=20 April 2012| magazine= H-France Review | volume=4 | date=March 2004 |number= 26}}</ref>