page_title: Paris in the 18th century
section_title: Religions and the Freemasons
hierarchical_section_title: Paris in the 18th century / Institutions / Religions and the Freemasons
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Église Saint-Sulpice (Classé) This building is indexed in the Base Mérimée, a database of architectural heritage maintained by the French Ministry of Culture,&#160;under the reference PA00088510 . беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎&#160;| বাংলা&#160;| brezhoneg&#160;| català&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| Ελληνικά&#160;| English&#160;| Esperanto&#160;| español&#160;| euskara&#160;| suomi&#160;| français&#160;| magyar&#160;| italiano&#160;| 日本語&#160;| македонски&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| română&#160;| русский&#160;| sicilianu&#160;| svenska&#160;| українська&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: Paris in the 18th century was the second-largest city in Europe, after London, with a population of about 600,000 people. The century saw the construction of Place Vendôme, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Élysées, the church of Les Invalides, and the Panthéon, and the founding of the Louvre Museum. Paris witnessed the end of the reign of Louis XIV, was the center stage of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, saw the first manned flight, and was the birthplace of high fashion and the modern restaurant.
context_section_description: The great majority of Parisians were at least nominally Roman Catholic, and the church played an enormous role in the life of the city; though its influence declined toward the end of the century, partly because of the Enlightenment, and partly from conflicts within the church establishment. The church, along with the nobility, suffered more than any other institutions from the French Revolution.
  For most of the 18th century, until the Revolution, the church ran the hospitals and provided the health care in the city; was responsible for aiding the poor, and ran all the educational establishments, from the parish schools through the University of Paris. The nobility and the higher levels of the church were closely linked; the archbishops, bishops and other high figures of the church came from noble families, promoted their relatives, lived with ostentatious luxury, did not always live highly moral lives. Talleyrand, though a bishop, never bothered to hide his mistress, and was much more involved in politics than religious affairs. At the beginning of the century the Confreries, corporations of the members of each of the different Paris professions, were very active in each parish at the beginning of the century, organizing, events and managing the finances of the local churches, but their importance declined over the century, as the nobility, rather than the merchants, took over management of the church. 
  The church in Paris also suffered from internal tensions. In the 17th century, as part of the Counter-Reformation, forty-eight religious orders, including the Dominicans, Franciscans, Jacobins, Capucines, Jesuits and many others, had established monasteries and convents in Paris. These establishments reported to the Pope in Rome rather than to the Archbishop of Paris, which soon caused trouble. The leaders of the Sorbonne chose to support the leadership of the archbishop rather than the Pope, so the Jesuits established their own college, Clermont, within the University of Paris, and constructed their own church, Saint-Louis, on the rue Saint-Antoine. The conflicts continued; The Jesuits refused to grant absolution to Madame de Pompadour, mistress of the King, because she was not married to him, 1763 and 1764 the King closed the Jesuit colleges and expelled the order from the city.
   
  The Enlightenment also caused growing difficulties, as Voltaire and other Philosophes argued against unquestioned acceptance of the doctrines of the church. Paris became a battleground between the established church and the largely upper-class followers of a sect called Jansenism, founded in Paris in 1623, and fiercely persecuted by both Louis XIV and the Pope. The archbishop of Paris required that dying persons sign a document renouncing Jansenism; if they refused to sign, they were denied last rites from the church. There were rebellions over smaller matters as well; in 1765 twenty-eight Benedictine monks petitioned the King to postpone the hour of first prayers so they could sleep longer, and to have the right to wear more attractive robes. The church in Paris also had great difficulty recruiting new priests among the Parisians; of 870 priests ordained in Paris between 1778 and 1789, only one-third were born in the city.
  The Catholic diocese of Paris also was having financial problems late in the century. It was unable to pay for the completion of the south tower of the church of Saint-Sulpice. though the north tower was rebuilt between 1770 and 1780; the unfinished tower is still as it was in 1789. unable to finish it to complete the churches of Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Sauveur. Four old churches, falling into ruins, were torn down and not replaced because of lack of funds.
  After the fall of the Bastille, the new National Assembly argued that the belongings of the church belonged to the nation, and ordered that church property be sold to pay the debts incurred by the monarchy. Convents and monasteries were ordered closed, and their buildings and furnishings sold as national property. Priests were no longer permitted to take vows; instea
caption: The unfinished south tower of the church of Saint-Sulpice, left as it was in 1789.
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