Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution itself. There has been much scholarly debate over whether the movement was popularly motivated. The French Revolution initially began with attacks on church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy, an action with which even many Christians could identify, since the Roman Catholic church held a dominant role in pre-revolutionary France. During a two-year period known as the Reign of Terror, the episodes of anti-clericalism grew more violent than any in modern European history. The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the church; abolished the Catholic monarchy; nationalized church property; exiled 30,000 priests and killed hundreds more. In October 1793 the
Prisons of the Reign of Terror Prisons of the Reign of Terror Prisons of the Reign of Terror indicates a process set up under the Reign of Terror, inaugurated after the lawsuit of the dantonists, then set up in a systematic manner, after the vote of the Law of 22 Prairial (). There were several "crimes against humanity," given that the expression indicates neither rebellion nor mutiny, but a concerted plan of physical elimination of innocent prisoners without due process of the law. Some of these manufactured "conspiracies" considered to be criminal, in year III (1795) failed (), others envisaged were prempted because of the events