Red Priests (France)

However, it is anachronistic because the color red, associated with socialist movements since 1848, did not signify supporters of the French Revolution, who were referred to as "Blues" during the civil wars of 1793–1799, in contrast to the royalist "Whites".

The priests who were deputies to the National Convention and who voted in favour of the death of Louis XVI are also considered as part of this group.

Often from the lower clergy (parish priests and vicars), they constituted a significant faction within the Catholic Church in France at the beginning of the Revolution.

[1][4][5] Acknowledging that the term "Red Priests" is an anachronism, some historians, including Annie Geffroy, James C. Scott, and Serge Bianchi, have criticized it.

[8] In general, bishops and abbots constituted a significant social group, wealthy and closely connected to the ruling elites, enjoying fiscal, economic, judicial, and property privileges.

[8] On the other hand, priests, especially those in rural areas or small to medium-sized towns, were generally much more integrated into the living conditions of their parishioners, the Third Estate.

[8][9] They formed a large group within the Catholic Church in France, and a substantial number of these priests were intellectually educated, having access to Enlightenment writings, the Encyclopédie, and, for the most part, the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

[5][8][9] Many of these priests, monks, and religious leaders were highly critical of various aspects, such as clerical celibacy, leading some to leave the priesthood by getting married.

Through this holy, sublime, true religion, men, children of the same God, recognized each other as brothers, and the society that united them did not dissolve even in death.In 1788, after several attempts to address the financial crisis of the kingdom, Louis XVI decided to convene the Estates-General, a gathering that had not taken place since 1614.

Elections were to be accompanied, in each parish and at the bailiwick capital, by the drafting of lists of grievances (cahiers de doléances) that the deputies were to bring to Versailles".

[13] Thus, one can find demands similar to those of the Third Estate in their cahiers de doléances,[4] as in the case of Forcalquier:[14]Consideration should be given in the distribution of benefits and other ecclesiastical graces, based on service and merit rather than birth.

[...] We will seek the easing of taxes weighing on the poor people, such as those on leather, unheard-of and ruinous domain rights, and controls.

The hardworking day laborer, for whom work is not sufficient, and the poor widow burdened with children have no resources other than the charity of their pastors.

[...] To abolish the use of lettres de cachet and to lift those that have been issued in the past.Priests and vicars (the lower clergy) were favored by the election process.

On June 19, the clergy reintroduced the motion, which was accepted by 149 votes out of 296, giving the majority to the dissenting deputies and allowing them to proclaim themselves the National Assembly.

On July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille took place by the Parisian people, partly inspired by Claude Fauchet, an openly revolutionary clergyman.

[8] In the vicinity of Paris, as in Melun, other priests acted in support of the French Revolution, like Father Romain Pichonnier d'Andrezel, who founded a branch of the Society of Friends of the Constitution (the official name of the Jacobin Club) there.

[8] He remained loyal to the Jacobins until his death from illness in 1792, expressing frustration with the slow progress of both the trial of Louis XVI and the production of pikes.

Among them was Deputy Dom Gerle, prior of the Chartreuse de Port-Sainte-Marie, who later renounced his vows and monastic life due to his extreme mystical opinions,[26] or Eulogius Schneider, a German Franciscan priest and translator of John Chrysostom, who supported the French Revolution, ran a radical journal called 'Argos', and served as public prosecutor of the Criminal Tribunal of Strasbourg.

He also renounced his vows to marry, reflecting the opposition frequently shared by red priests to clerical celibacy.

[36] Father Pierre Jacques Michel Chasles, deputy from Eure-et-Loir, similarly voted after saying,[36][37] "I do not hesitate to say, in front of the homeland, in the presence of the image of Brutus, before my own conscience, that the moment when the Assembly rejected the proposal for an appeal to the primary assemblies seemed to me a day of triumph for freedom and equality, for the salvation of the Republic."

By his side was Father Capuchin François Chabot, deputy from Loir-et-Cher, who voted for the king's death, expressing himself in this way:[36][37]If I wanted to modify my opinion, cloud it in some way, I could also ask that Louis be required to declare his accomplices, and that they be led to the same guillotine.

"[36] The Montagnard Father Léonard Honoré Gay de Vernon, parish priest of Compreignac and deputy from Haute-Vienne, voted for the death of the king, against reprieve and against the appeal to the people.

"[37] Father Louis-Félix Roux, deputy from Haute-Marne, expressed himself as follows:[37]A tyrant once said he wanted the Roman people to have only one head so that it could be struck off in a single blow; Louis Capet, as much as it was in his power, executed this atrocious desire.

[39] One of them, Father Jacques Roux, the parish priest of the church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, engaged from 1791 and increasingly until his execution in impassioned speeches directed at the sans-culottes.

For his extremism, he was targeted by the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror, appeared before the Criminal Court, which declared itself incompetent, and referred him to the Revolutionary Tribunal.

[7] Victor Hugo mentions them when he described the National Convention, in his last novel, "Quatrevingt-treize" (English : Ninety-Three) which explores the period of the Reign of Terror:[48][49][50]The imprecations exchanged retorts.