The Flight of the Discontented Nobility

In the turbulent years following the outbreak of the French Revolution, a significant exodus of aristocrats and their retinues began—a movement born not of adventure, but of profound resentment. These émigrés, unable to reconcile themselves with the revolutionary changes sweeping France, embarked on journeys into exile, carrying with them both their material possessions and their bitter disillusionment. Though their departure did little to threaten the ultimate victory of the revolution, it marked a critical social and psychological schism within the ancien régime’s elite.

Among those who fled was Adèle d’Osmond, the Duchess of Boisgelin, who, though only ten years old in 1791, was already an insider at the Versailles court. In later memoirs, she recalled the jarring transition experienced by noblewomen forced into work to sustain themselves abroad. Their lives, once defined by luxury and privilege, now confronted “the distasteful contrast between past vanity and present desolation.” This sentiment was echoed by Lucy Dillon, who, upon arriving in Switzerland after a two-week journey with her aunt in 1791, expressed astonishment at the persistent haughtiness and self-indulgence of the exiled noble community. “They brought with them all the airs and arrogance of Parisian society… they despised everything,” she noted. Their contempt extended even to those nobles who had remained in France, whether continuing military service or retreating to rural estates. In a gesture of mockery and accusation of cowardice, some émigrés sent white feathers to their compatriots—a symbolic act that revealed more about their own powerlessness than the courage of those they criticized.

Revolutionary Reforms and the Catholic Church

The National Assembly’s reforms targeting the Catholic Church dramatically altered the scale and intensity of counter-revolutionary sentiment. What began as an attempt to rationalize and modernize religious institutions inadvertently deepened societal fractures. The cahiers de doléances from 1789 had revealed widespread desire for ecclesiastical reform, and the Assembly acted swiftly. There was broad consensus on certain core issues: raising the income of parish priests, reducing the lavish stipends of upper clergy, and abolishing the tithe—a tax long resented by the peasantry. The principle of separating church and state was generally accepted, with the state assuming financial responsibility for the church’s public functions after the abolition of the tithe in August 1789.

Under the old regime, the king had served as head of the Gallican Church, exercising direct control over ecclesiastical administration—including the authority to close poorly managed monasteries, as Louis XV had done with hundreds. It was within this context that the National Assembly felt entitled to reorganize the church. Just three months after nationalizing church property, the Assembly decreed on February 13, 1790, the closure of all monastic institutions not dedicated to education or charity. Mere contemplative religious life was no longer considered sufficient grounds for public subsidy.

The response from religious communities was mixed and deeply human. For many monks and nuns, the choice between staying or leaving was agonizing, influenced by age, vocation, and circumstance. In the diocese of Strasbourg in Lorraine, for example, the majority of the 61 monks across six monasteries wished to remain. In contrast, all 15 Dominican nuns at Bebing—relatively young, between 26 and 46 years of age—were eager to depart. Meanwhile, every one of the 24 nuns at the Saint-Élisabeth convent in Vézelise expressed a desire to stay; half were over 54 years old. In Nancy, out of 200 monks across 14 monasteries, only a handful indicated willingness to leave. In one large Carmelite monastery, just 1 of 31 monks sought secularization. By November 1791, some 620 ecclesiastics in the Nancy region were still drawing state salaries. Many religious welcomed the end of cloistered life, but others consented with heavy hearts. A statement from the Orléans diocese in October 1790 captured this reluctant acquiescence: “This is obedience, not choice; it is necessity, not free will.”

Religious Pluralism and Rising Tensions

Equally troubling to traditional Catholics was the Assembly’s move toward religious equality. The election of Protestant pastor Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne as president of the Assembly on March 15, 1790, signaled a dramatic shift. That same month, “patriots” in Avignon seized control of the city, seeking to annex the Papal territory to France. Pope Pius VI, already alarmed, condemned the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, warning that popular sovereignty was dangerous precisely because it implied that people would only obey laws they themselves agreed with.

Fearing that radical reforms would undermine the Catholic faith, Carthusian monk Dom Gerle on March 14 proposed a decree declaring Catholicism not merely the nation’s sole religion, but its “only publicly recognized and authoritative religion.” The measure was defeated resoundingly—903 votes to 297—yet the breakdown of support revealed growing fissures. One-third of noble delegates and 144 of the 300 clerical representatives voted in favor of maintaining Catholic monopoly. They thereby distanced themselves from the bourgeois representatives of the Third Estate, over 90% of whom opposed any such religious exclusivity.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy

It was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 12, 1790, that became the focal point of conflict. Many of its provisions reflected widespread desires expressed in the cahiers: abolishing special fees for religious services, eliminating the tithe, appointing bishops based on merit and requiring them to reside in their dioceses. Most lower clergy benefited from the new salary structure, though some upper clergy resented sharp reductions in episcopal incomes.

The Assembly also redrew diocesan and parish boundaries to align with the new administrative communes, drastically reducing the number of parishes. This provoked frustration in villages and hamlets too small to qualify as communes, leaving residents without local churches. In villages like Bossely near Vitré in Brittany, petitioners pleaded with the Assembly for “a place where they could share their sorrows, worries, and needs,” arguing that the nearest church was too distant—especially in bad weather or for families with young children.

In cities, the consolidation of parishes also stirred devout opposition. Based on a formula of one parish church per 6,000 inhabitants, Paris was to close 19 of its 52 churches, Rouen 21 of 32, Bourges 11 of 15, and Angers 9 of 17. In Laon, a hilltop town in Picardy, 10 of 12 churches were shuttered. In regions like this, where the church had owned 28% of the land, the sale of church property enriched propertied rural buyers while devastating the urban religious landscape. In Toulouse, where clerics had made up a tenth of the population, the reorganization upended centuries of tradition and community identity.

Cultural and Social Impacts

The émigré experience and the religious reforms collectively reshaped French society in profound ways. The exile of nobles dismantled much of the old social hierarchy, creating a vacuum filled by the emerging bourgeois and professional classes. Abroad, émigrés often struggled to adapt, their identity strained between nostalgia for a lost world and the practical demands of survival. Their presence in neighboring countries also internationalized the French Revolution, as European courts watched with alarm—and sometimes sympathy.

Within France, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy forced ordinary citizens to take sides in what became a religious civil war. The requirement that clergy swear an oath of loyalty to the state split the church between constitutional jurors and non-juring refractories. Families and communities divided along religious lines, and popular piety often rallied behind priests who refused the oath. In western regions like the Vendée, religious discontent fused with royalism and local grievances to ignite open rebellion by 1793.

The suppression of monasteries and convents not only disrupted religious life but also altered the social landscape. Many religious houses had provided education, healthcare, and charity; their closure left gaps in welfare that the state was initially ill-prepared to fill. At the same time, the sale of church land created a new class of landowners, accelerating the transfer of wealth and reinforcing the revolution’s agrarian reforms.

Legacy and Modern Relevance

The events of the early Revolution—the émigré exodus and the religious reforms—left enduring marks on French and European history. The émigrés themselves would later return under Napoleon and the Restoration, but their world had vanished forever. Their writings and memoirs, like those of the Duchess of Boisgelin, became part of a potent counter-revolutionary narrative that influenced conservative thought throughout the 19th century.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the schism it provoked foreshadowed the persistent tension between church and state in modern France. The Concordat of 1801 temporarily healed the rift, but the secularizing impulse of the Revolution continued, culminating in the 1905 law on the separation of church and state—a foundational principle of the French Republic.

Today, these historical episodes remind us of the complex interplay between religious identity, state power, and social change. The revolution’s effort to redefine the role of religion in public life raises questions still relevant in pluralistic societies: How can states accommodate religious diversity while maintaining social cohesion? What are the limits of state authority over religious institutions? And how do communities navigate the tension between tradition and transformation?

In the end, the story of the émigrés and the church reforms is more than a historical footnote; it is a chapter in the long struggle to define liberty, authority, and belonging in the modern world. Through the voices of those who lived it—the resentful nobles, the uncertain religious, the determined reformers—we glimpse the human dimensions of revolutionary change, its promises and its costs, its victories and its enduring dilemmas.