Paris, religious capital during the Second Empire

Paris, the city of revolutions, is traditionally presented as a 19th-century centre of ‘dechristianisation’. But Paris was also the powerhouse of French religious regeneration, notably catholic. With its concentration of catholic clergy from many different backgrounds and geographical areas, and with increasingly large numbers of religious communities, Paris, itself an industrial centre in full expansion, was also the starting point for most of the social development of the period. This power became increasingly evident in the second half of the 19th century, at the very moment when the political and religious authorities were beginning to become aware of the growing chasm between the church and people. Acting with the full support of the archbishops of Paris, Napoleon III launched a plan which could be called the religious ‘haussmannisation’ of the capital, which included reform at a parish level and the restoration of religious buildings, of which the work on Notre-Dame was the symbol. This project aimed to make Paris the catholic religious capital of France, and the Napoleonic regime hoped to use the support of the catholic church in order to help it take root; indeed every opportunity was taken to use that church in its display of Imperial power. Paris also attempted to be the very model of a church open to the world, thus in complete opposition to Roman intransigence. The capital also attempted to become head of the catholic church in France in the face of Rome and its Syllabus. Despite the fact that the Vatican Council put an end to this attempt, Paris nevertheless preserved an authority which gives it still today, a special position in the catholic church of France. Jacques-Olivier Boudon, ex-pupil at the Ecole normale supérieure, agrégé d’histoire, is Professor of Contemporary History at the Univerity of Rouen. Specialist in both the First and Second Empires, he is President of the Institut Napoléon. Paris, capitale religieuse sous le Second Empire