History of the Catholic Church in France the peasants, who clung to their religion and faith, and the fanatics of the Revolution, who, in the name of patriotism threatened, as they said, by the priests, were overturning the altars. According to the locality in which they happened to be, the propagandists either encouraged or hindered this violence against religion; but even in the every bitterest days of the terror, there was never a moment when Catholic worship was suppressed throughout France. When Robespierre had sent the partisans of Hébert and of Danton to the scaffold, he attempted to set up in France what he called la religion
Influence of the French Revolution the royal courts in Vienna and Berlin denounced the overthrow of the king and the threatened spread of notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity. By 1793, the execution of the French king and the onset of the Terror disillusioned the "Bildungsbürgertum" (educated middle classes). Reformers said the solution was to have faith in the ability of Germans to reform their laws and institutions in peaceful fashion. After Prussia was humiliated by Napoleon opinion swung against France and stimulated and shaped German nationalism. France took direct control of the Rhineland 1794–1814 and radically and permanently liberalized the government, society and economy.