High Tide of Revolutionary Democracy 639
there were many who regarded it as an expression of Christian doctrine. In Swit-
zerland, Pestalozzi attributed modern ideas of freedom and equality to the “Chris-
tian revolution” by which paganism had been superseded in ages past. “Jesus was
the most fervent democrat and the most excellent philanthropist,” said a Polish
Jacobin in 1794.^55
That the clergy, especially the established clergy in various countries, Catholic
or Protestant, were among the chief opponents of the Revolution there can be no
doubt. They had good reason, since the Revolution threatened them with the loss
of their corporate status, their role in conjunction with governments, their prop-
erty and tithes. Especially in France, it attacked the religion of which they were
ministers, and exposed them to exile, insult, and persecution, which in 1798 were
at their highest point since 1794. Since at the same time the clergy retained their
influence with large segments of the population, the result was a fatal weakening
of the revolutionary- republican movement, and a conflict between democracy and
the churches that was to last for at least a hundred years. The Enlightenment, es-
pecially in its Voltairean aspect, and not without reason, had coupled a strong anti-
Christianism with the prospect of worldly improvement. No fact was more dam-
aging to the democratic revolution.
All this is so well understood, however, and so true as far as it goes, that a more
exact picture must call attention to the opposite fact, that a great many Christian
clergy did accept or sympathize with the Revolution, or at least with its goals and
its principles. The Revolution caused differences among the clergy, as among men
of other kinds. It is necessary to proceed with caution, especially in the absence of
detailed studies of the Protestant clergy of northern Europe of the kind that have
been made of the Catholic clergy in France and Italy. As when we find business
men sympathetic to the Revolution, the question arises whether they were en-
gaged in “legitimate” business or were merely adventurers, in an account of the
clergy it is important to know (and it is often impossible) whether in favoring the
Revolution they did so as Christians, as apostates, or as de- Christianized humani-
tarians. Thousands of French clergy accepted the constitutional church. Some be-
came what Burke called “atheistic buffoons”;^56 but of men like Grégoire, while
they were clearly in a state of schism with respect to Rome, it is hard to deny that
they continued to be Christians.
In Holland and Ireland the Roman Catholics and many of their clergy, having
long lived under a Protestant ascendancy, were well- disposed toward revolutionary
change. A great many Polish clergy supported Kosciuszko. Most of the French
émigré bishops, even under the pressures of exile, refused formally to identify the
cause of Catholicism in France with the restoration of Louis XVIII. In all the Ital-
ian revolutions priests played a role, nor were they all Jansenists by any means. It
has already been seen how the future Pius VII accepted “democracy” in the Cisal-
pine Republic. Two cardinals accepted the Roman Republic of 1798, and the
55 On Rebmann, see Hansen, Quellen, IV, 1004 n.; on the Dutch, J. Hazeu, Historie der omwen-
telingen in vaderlandsche gesprekken voor kinderen (Amsterdam, 1796), passim; on the Swiss, P. Wernle,
Der schweitzerische Protestantismus im 18 Jahrhundert, 3 vols. (Tübingen, 1925), III, 511–12; on the
Poles, B. Lesnodorski, Polscy Jakobini (Warsaw, 1960), 246.
56 Burke, Remarks on the Policy of the Allies (1793) in Work s (Boston, 1839), IV, 114.