Religion (viz. Catholicism) proved the staunchest enemy of the French Revolution. During the early phases of the revolution, ideologues such as Robespierre sought to replace traditional religion by sacralizing civic institutions, transferring sacred feelings onto such notions as the nation, patrie, and humanité. Revolutionary concepts were made into national sacraments. Baptism, according to one redefinition, is ‘the regeneration of the French which transforms the essence of his being, turns an oppressed people of slaves into a free people answerably only to the law’. By late 1792 Civic Catechisms (one of which you saw the little boy recite in the Andrej Wajda’s film ‘Danton) were published to embolden the anti-aristocratic spirit of ‘the people’ and to educate mindful citizens of the Republic in civic virtue. The revolutionaries’ goal was to turn the French into un peuple nouveau, and the Revolution itself took on aspects of a new transformative religion. For the most part these catechisms were commentaries upon the Declaration of the Rights alf Man and Citizen (1789), but they also served as propaganda for those groups driving the politics of the day. For example, the following is a question asked of a ‘little catechism, for use by the grands infans‘ (probably referring to the Sans Culottes of the Paris Sections)published around the 10th August 1792:

Q: What is the Jacobin Club? A: IT is the forge of the National Assembly. It is the furnace of patriotism that heats the entirely of France.  

Napoleon brought an end to the First French Republic in 1804, but he continued the project of remaking the French people. Cardinal Caprara, the papal legate, approved the Imperial Catechism for use in all the churches of France. A preliminary version was issued just two years after the signing of the Concordat with the Church in 1801, when Napoleon had sufficient control over the Catholic clergy. Here is an excerpt of the Imperial Catechism:

On the Meaning of the Fourth Commandment

Q. – What are the Christian duties regarding the princes who govern them, and what are our particular duties to Napoleon I, our Emperor?

A. – Christians owe to the princes who govern them, and we owe in particular to Napoleon I, our Emperor, love, respect, obedience, faithfulness, military service, the contributions ordered for the preservation and the defence of the Empire and its throne; we also owe fervent prayers for his health and for the spiritual and temporal well-being of the State.

Q. – Why are we bound by these duties to our Emperor?

A. – First, because God, who creates empires and distributes them according to His Will, in overwhelming our Emperor with gifts, whether in peace or in war, has established our Sovereign, has made him the agent of His Power and His Image upon earth. To honour and serve our Emperor is thus to honour and serve God Himself….

Q. – What should one think of those who fail in their duties towards our Emperor?

A. – According to the Apostle, Saint Paul, they are offering resistance to the order established by God Himself, and they are rendering themselves worthy of Eternal Damnation.

Here is a good site for Napoleon’s Concordat with the Catholic Church and his Imperial Catechism. Read the excerpts from the documents please.