The French Revolution and Religious Reform: An Account of Ecclesiastical Legislation and Its Influence on Affairs in France from 1789 to 1804 (Classic Reprint)

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FB&C Limited, Feb 5, 2018 - History - 362 pages
Excerpt from The French Revolution and Religious Reform: An Account of Ecclesiastical Legislation and Its Influence on Affairs in France From 1789 to 1804

It is therefore essential not that we should study secular history as a discipline Of Church history, but that we should give due place to the church as a social and political force everywhere and at all times. The Roman hierarchy in France was in the eighteenth cen tury the most influential estate of the realm. Its in iquities were long concealed by its traditional prestige. The masses were scarcely aware of the facts and they had a racial instinct of devotion to the papacy. During the long prologue to the Revolution the agitations of the public mind were confined to a minority of the na tion; only a still smaller minority was able to draw distinctions, which appeared at bottom to be metaphysi cal; and a very few displayed capacity for leadership. It seems as if there were not even a handful of indi viduals who had an historic consciousness and the for ward look essential in great crises.

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