Chapter 15—France's Reign of Terror: Its True Cause

Some nations welcomed the Reformation as a messenger of Heaven. Other lands excluded the light of Bible knowledge almost completely. In one country truth and error struggled for the mastery for centuries. In the end, the truth of Heaven was pushed out. The restraint of God's Spirit was removed from a people that had despised the gift of His grace. And all the world saw what happens when people willfully reject light. 5TC 156.2

The war against the Bible in France led to the Revolution, the legitimate result of Rome's having suppressed the Scriptures (see Appendix). It presented the most striking illustration the world has ever seen of the effects of the Roman Church's teaching. 5TC 156.3

In the book of Revelation, John points to the terrible results that were to come especially to France from the domination of the “man of sin”: 5TC 157.1

“They will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.... When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.... And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them” (Revelation 11:2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11). 5TC 157.2

The “forty-two months” and “one thousand two hundred and sixty days” are the same, the time in which Rome would oppress the church of Christ. The 1,260 years began in A.D. 538 and ended in 1798 (see Appendix). At that time a French army took the pope prisoner, and he died in exile. The papal hierarchy has never since been able to wield the power it possessed before. 5TC 157.3

The persecution of the church did not continue through the entire 1,260 years. In mercy to His people, God cut short the time of their fiery trial by the influence of the Reformation. 5TC 157.4

The “two witnesses” represent the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, important testimonies to the origin and permanence of God's law, and also to the plan of salvation. 5TC 157.5

“They will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” When the Bible was forbidden and its testimony perverted, when those who dared to proclaim its truths were betrayed, tortured, martyred for their faith or compelled to run away for safety—then the faithful “witnesses” prophesied “in sackcloth.” In the darkest times God gave faithful Christians wisdom and authority to declare His truth. (See Appendix.) 5TC 157.6

“And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner” (Revelation 11:5). Trampling on the Word of God has deadly consequences! 5TC 158.1

“When they finish [are finishing] their testimony.” As the two witnesses were nearing the end of their work in obscurity, “the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit” was to make war on them. Here we see a new display of satanic power. 5TC 158.2

While professing reverence for the Bible, it had been Rome's policy to keep the Bible locked up in an unknown language, hidden from the people. Under her rule the witnesses prophesied “clothed in sackcloth.” But “the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit” was to make open, determined war on the Word of God. 5TC 158.3

“The great city” in whose streets the witnesses are killed and where their dead bodies lie is “spiritually” Egypt. Of all nations in Bible history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of the living God and resisted His commands. No ruler ever dared to rebel against Heaven more arrogantly than did the king of Egypt, Pharaoh: “I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2). This is atheism; and the nation represented by Egypt in the prophecy would voice a similar denial of God and reveal a similar spirit of defiance. 5TC 158.4

“The great city” of the prophecy is also compared “spiritually” to Sodom. The corruption of Sodom was especially evident in its open sexual impurity. This would also be a characteristic of the nation that would fulfill this scripture. 5TC 158.5

So according to the prophet, a little before 1798 some power of satanic character would rise to make war on the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God's “two witnesses” would be silenced, the atheism of Pharaoh and the sexual lust of Sodom would be evident. 5TC 158.6

A Striking Fulfillment of Prophecy

This prophecy was remarkably fulfilled in the history of France during the Revolution in 1793. “France stands apart in the world's history as the single state which, by the decree of her Legislative Assembly, declared that there was no God. The entire population of the capital, and a great majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement.”^{1Blackwood Magazine, November 1870.} 5TC 158.7

France also revealed the characteristics that distinguished Sodom. The historian presents together the atheism and the loose sexuality of France: “Closely connected with these laws affecting religion was the law that reduced the union of marriage—the most sacred tie that human beings can form, and whose permanence contributes most strongly to the stability of society—to nothing more than a civil contract of a temporary character, which any two persons might engage in and cast aside whenever they wished.... Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for saying witty things, described marriage in that era as ‘the sacrament of adultery.’”^{2Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 17.} 5TC 159.1

Enmity Against Christ

“Where also our Lord was crucified.” This was also fulfilled by France. In no other country did the truth have more cruel opposition. In the persecution heaped on those who took their stand for the gospel, France had crucified Christ in the person of His disciples. 5TC 159.2

Century after century the blood of the saints had been shed. While the Waldenses laid down their lives on the mountains of Piedmont “for the testimony of Jesus Christ,” the Albigenses of France had given a similar witness. The disciples of the Reformation had been put to death with horrible tortures. King and nobles, highborn women and delicate maidens had feasted their eyes on the dying agonies of the martyrs of Jesus. The brave Huguenots had poured out their blood on many a hard-fought battlefield. Protestants had been hunted down like wild beasts. 5TC 159.3

The few descendants of the ancient Christians who remained in France in the eighteenth century, hiding away in the mountains of the south, still cherished the faith of their fathers. They were dragged away to lifelong slavery in the galleys. The most refined and intelligent of the French were chained, in horrible torture, among robbers and assassins. Others were shot down in cold blood as they fell on their knees in prayer. Their country, laid waste with the sword, the axe, and the stake, “was converted into one vast, gloomy wilderness.” “These atrocities took place ... in no dark age, but in the brilliant era of Louis XIV. Science was then cultivated, literature flourished, the clergy of the royal court and of the capital were educated and eloquent men who made a great show of the graces of meekness and charity.”^{3James A. Wylie, History of Protestantism, book 22, chapter 7.} 5TC 159.4

The Most Horrible of Crimes

But most horrible among the terrible deeds of the dreadful centuries was the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The king of France, urged on by priests and church officials, gave his permission. A bell, tolling in the middle of the night, was a signal for the slaughter. Protestants by the thousands, sleeping in their homes, trusting the honor of their king, were dragged out and murdered. 5TC 160.1

For seven days the massacre continued in Paris. By the king's order it was extended to all towns where Protestants were found. Noble and peasant, old and young, mother and child, were cut down together. Throughout France seventy thousand of the nation's best citizens died. 5TC 160.2

“When the news of the massacre reached Rome, the rejoicing among the clergy knew no limits. The cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the messenger with a thousand gold coins; the cannon of St. Angelo thundered out a joyous salute. Bells rang out from every steeple, bonfires turned night into day, and Pope Gregory XIII, accompanied by the cardinals and other church dignitaries, went in long procession to the church of St. Louis, where the cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum.... A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre.... A French priest ... spoke of ‘that day so full of happiness and joy, when the most holy father received the news and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.’”^{4Henry White, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, chapter 14, paragraph 34.} 5TC 160.3

The same master spirit that urged on the St. Bartholomew Massacre led in the scenes of the Revolution. Jesus Christ was declared an impostor, and the cry of the French infidels was “Crush the Wretch,” meaning Christ. Blasphemy and wickedness went hand in hand. In all this, France paid homage to Satan, while Christ, in His characteristics of truth, purity, and unselfish love, was “crucified.” 5TC 161.1

“The beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them” (Revelation 11:7). The atheistic power that ruled in France during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror did wage this kind of war against God and His Word. The National Assembly abolished the worship of God. Bibles were collected and publicly burned. The government abolished the institutions of the Bible. It set aside the weekly rest day, and in its place the people devoted every tenth day to unholy celebrations. Baptism and the Communion were prohibited. Announcements posted over burial places declared that death was an eternal sleep. 5TC 161.2

All religious worship was prohibited except for worship of “liberty” and the country. The “constitutional bishop of Paris was brought forward ... to declare to the Convention that the religion which he had taught so many years was, in every respect, a piece of priestcraft that had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. In solemn and explicit terms he denied the existence of the God to whose worship he had been consecrated.”^{5Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 17.} 5TC 161.3

“And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 11:10). Infidel France had silenced the condemning voice of God's two witnesses. The word of truth lay “dead” in her streets, and those who hated God's law were joyful. People defied the King of heaven publicly. 5TC 161.4

Blasphemous Boldness

One of the “priests” of the new order said: “God, if You exist, avenge Your injured name. I defy You! You remain silent; You dare not launch Your thunders. After this, who will believe in Your existence?”^{6Lacretelle, History, volume 11, page 309; in Sir Archibald Alison, History of Europe, volume 1, chapter 10.} What an echo this was of Pharaoh's demand, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?” (Exodus 5:2). 5TC 161.5

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” And the Lord declares, “Their folly will be manifest to all.” (Psalm 14:1; 2 Timothy 3:9.) After France had renounced the worship of the living God, she descended into degrading idolatry by worshiping the Goddess of Reason, an immoral woman. And this took place in the representative assembly of the nation! “One of the ceremonies of this insane time has no equal for being absurd as well as insulting to God. The doors of the Convention were thrown open.... The members of the city's governing body entered in solemn procession, singing a hymn in praise of liberty, and escorting, as the object of their future worship, a veiled female, whom they called the Goddess of Reason. She was brought to the front, where she was unveiled with great pageantry and placed at the right of the president. People recognized her as a dancing girl of the opera.” 5TC 162.1

The Goddess of Reason

“Throughout the nation, wherever the inhabitants wanted to show themselves as having fully embraced the Revolution, the people imitated this installation of the Goddess of Reason.”^{7Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 17.} 5TC 162.2

When the “goddess” was brought into the Convention, the speaker took her by the hand, turned to the assembly, and said: “‘Mortals, cease to tremble before the powerless thunders of a God whom your fears have created. From now on, acknowledge no god but Reason. I offer you its noblest and purest image. If you must have idols, sacrifice only to such as this....’ 5TC 162.3

“The goddess, after being embraced by the president, was seated on a magnificent vehicle and taken to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of God. There she was raised up on a high altar and received the adoration of all present.”^{8M. A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, pages 370, 371.} 5TC 162.4

The church had begun the work that atheism was completing, hurrying France on to ruin. In referring to the horrors of the Revolution, writers say that these excesses are the fault of the kings and the church. (See Appendix.) Strict justice requires them to be charged upon the church. The papal system had poisoned the minds of kings against the Reformation. The spirit of Rome inspired the cruelty and oppression that came from the throne. 5TC 162.5

Wherever people received the gospel, their minds were awakened. They began to throw off the chains that had kept them slaves of ignorance and superstition. Kings saw it and trembled for their power. 5TC 163.1

Rome was not slow to inflame their jealous fears. In 1525, the pope said to the regent of France, “This mania [Protestantism] will not only defeat and destroy religion, but all states, nobility, laws, orders, and ranks besides.” A papal official warned the king: “The Protestants will upset all civil as well as religious order.... The throne is in as much danger as the altar.”^{9J. H. Merle D'Aubigné, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, book 2, chapter 36.} Rome succeeded in turning France against the Reformation. 5TC 163.2

The teaching of the Bible would have implanted in the hearts of the people the principles of justice, temperance, and truth, which are the cornerstone of a nation's prosperity. “Righteousness exalts a nation.” “A throne is established by righteousness.” (Proverbs 14:34; 16:12. See Isaiah 32:17.) The person who obeys God's law is the one who will most truly respect and obey the laws of the country. But France prohibited the Bible. Century after century Christians of integrity, of intellectual and moral strength, who had the faith to suffer for truth, worked as slaves in ships’ galleys, died at the stake, or rotted in dungeon cells. For 250 years after the start of the Reformation, thousands found safety only by leaving France. 5TC 163.3

“Scarcely was there a generation of Frenchmen during that long period that did not see the gospel's disciples fleeing from the insane fury of the persecutor, and taking with them the intelligence, the arts, the industry, the order, in which they were typically their country's best, to enrich the lands in which they found a refuge.... If France had kept all those who were driven away, what a ... great, prosperous, and happy country—a pattern to the nations—she would have been! But a blind and unrelenting bigotry chased from her soil every teacher of virtue, every champion of order, every honest defender of the throne.... At the end, the ruin of the state was complete.”^{10James A. Wylie, History of Protestantism, book 13, chapter 20.} The Revolution, with all its horrors, was the result. 5TC 163.4

What Might Have Been

“With the escape of the Huguenots a general decline settled on France. Flourishing manufacturing cities fell into decay.... It is estimated that, at the time the Revolution began, two hundred thousand poor people in Paris claimed charity from the hands of the king. Only the Jesuits flourished in the decaying nation.”^{11James A. Wylie, History of Protestantism, book 13, chapter 20.} 5TC 164.1

The gospel would have brought France the solution to those problems that baffled her clergy, king, and legislators and that finally plunged the nation into ruin. But under Rome the people had lost the Savior's lessons of self-sacrifice and unselfish love for the good of others. The rich received no rebuke for oppressing the poor, and the poor received no help for their pitiful condition. The selfishness of the wealthy and powerful grew more and more oppressive. For centuries, the rich wronged the poor, and the poor hated the rich. 5TC 164.2

In many provinces the working classes were at the mercy of landlords and were forced to submit to exhorbitant demands. The middle and lower classes were heavily taxed by the civil authorities and clergy. “The farmers and the peasants might starve, for all their oppressors cared.... The lives of the agricultural workers consisted of unending work and unrelieved misery. Their complaints ... were treated with insolent contempt.... Judges were notorious for accepting bribes.... Less than half of the taxes ever found their way into the royal or church treasury; the collectors kept the rest and squandered it in shameless self-indulgence. And the men who impoverished their fellow-subjects in this way were not required to pay taxes and were entitled by law or custom to all the privileges of the state.... So that these could gratify their selfish desires, millions of people were condemned to hopeless and degrading lives.” (See Appendix.) 5TC 164.3

For more than half a century before the Revolution, King Louis XV occupied the throne. He was well known as a lazy, superficial, and self-indulgent monarch. With the state financially embarrassed and the people exasperated, no one needed a prophet's eye to foresee a terrible outbreak. The king's counselors urged the need for reform, but he did not listen. The doom that was coming on France was pictured in the king's selfish answer, “After me, the deluge!” 5TC 164.4

Rome had influenced the kings and ruling classes to keep the people in bondage, intending to fasten the souls of both the rulers and the people in her shackles. The moral degradation was a thousand times more terrible than the physical suffering that resulted from her policy. Deprived of the Bible, and given fully to selfishness, the people were shrouded in ignorance and sunken in vice, completely unfit to govern themselves. 5TC 165.1

Results Reaped in Blood

Instead of keeping the common people in blind submission to her teachings, Rome's work resulted in making them infidels and revolutionists. They despised Romanism as priestly deceptions. But the only god they knew was the god of Rome. They believed Rome's greed and cruelty were the fruit of the Bible, and they would have none of it. 5TC 165.2

Rome had misrepresented God's character, and now people rejected both the Bible and its Author. In the reaction, Voltaire and his associates threw God's Word completely aside and spread their anti-Christian teachings. Rome had ground the people down under her iron heel, and now the people threw off all restraint. Enraged, they rejected truth and falsehood together. 5TC 165.3

At the opening of the Revolution, the king reluctantly granted the people more political representation than that of the nobles and clergy combined. So the balance of power was in their hands, but they were not prepared to use it wisely and with moderation. The angry citizens were determined to revenge themselves. The oppressed carried out the lesson they had learned under tyranny and became the oppressors of those who had oppressed them. 5TC 165.4

France reaped a harvest in blood from her submission to Rome. Where France, under Romanism, had set up the first stake at the opening of the Reformation, there the Revolution set up its first guillotine. On the spot where the first martyrs of the Protestant faith were burned in the sixteenth century, the first victims were guillotined in the eighteenth. When the nation threw off the restraints of God's law, it swept on to revolt and anarchy. The war against the Bible stands in world history as the Reign of Terror. Whoever triumphed today was condemned tomorrow. 5TC 165.5

King, clergy, and nobles were forced to submit to the atrocities of a maddened people. Those who decreed the death of the king soon followed him to the scaffold. A general slaughter was decreed against anyone suspected of hostility to the Revolution. France became a vast field for rival masses of people, swayed by the fury of their passions. “In Paris one riot followed another, and the citizens were divided into an assortment of factions that seemed intent on nothing but exterminating each other.... The country was nearly bankrupt, the armies were clamoring for back pay, the people of Paris were starving, the provinces were laid waste by armed robbers, and civilization was almost extinguished in anarchy and unrestrained immorality.” 5TC 166.1

All too well the people had learned the lessons of cruelty and torture that Rome had taught so diligently. This time it was not the disciples of Jesus that were dragged to the stake. Long ago these had died or been driven into exile. “The scaffolds ran red with the blood of the priests. The galleys and the prisons, once crowded with Huguenots, were now filled with their persecutors. Chained to the bench and laboring at the oar, the Roman Catholic priests experienced all the suffering that their church had inflicted so freely on the gentle heretics.” (See Appendix.) 5TC 166.2

“Then came those days ... when spies lurked in every corner, when the guillotine was at work long and hard every morning, when the jails were packed as tightly as the holds of a slave ship, when the gutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine River.... Long rows of captives were mowed down with grapeshot from cannons. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges.... Hundreds of young boys and of girls of seventeen were murdered by that repulsive government. Soldiers tore babies from the breast and tossed them from spear to spear along their ranks.” (See Appendix.) 5TC 166.3

All this was just as Satan wanted it. His policy is deception, and his purpose is to bring wretchedness on humanity, to deface the workmanship of God, and to mar the divine purpose of love, all to cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive arts, he leads people to throw the blame on God, as if all this misery were the result of the Creator's plan. When the people found Romanism to be a deception, he urged them to regard all religion as a cheat and the Bible as a fable. 5TC 167.1

The Fatal Error

The fatal error that brought such misery on France was that she ignored this one great truth: true freedom lies within the limits of the law of God. “Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:18). 5TC 167.2

Those who refuse to read the lesson from the Book of God are invited to read it in history. 5TC 167.3

When Satan used the Roman Church to lead people away from obedience, he disguised his work. The Spirit of God prevented his plans from reaching their full results. The people did not trace the effect back to its cause and discover the source of their miseries. But in the Revolution the National Council openly set aside the law of God. And in the Reign of Terror which followed, everyone could see the working of cause and effect. 5TC 167.4

Breaking a just and righteous law will result in ruin. The restraining Spirit of God, which puts a limit on the cruel power of Satan, was mostly removed, and the one who delights in human wretchedness was permitted to do what he wished. Those who had chosen rebellion were left to reap its fruits. Crime filled the land. From devastated provinces and ruined cities came a terrible cry of bitter anguish. France was shaken as if by an earthquake. Religion, law, social order, the family, the state, and the church—all were struck down by the evil hand that had been lifted against the law of God. 5TC 167.5

God's two faithful witnesses, killed by the blasphemous power that “ascends out of the bottomless pit,” were not to remain silent for long. “After the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them” (Revelation 11:11). In 1793, the decrees that set aside the Bible passed the French Assembly. Three and a half years later the same body adopted a resolution rescinding these decrees. People recognized the need for faith in God and His Word as the foundation of virtue and morality. 5TC 168.1

Concerning the “two witnesses” [the Old and New Testaments], the prophet declares further: “And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them” (Revelation 11:12). “God's two witnesses” have been honored as never before. In 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized, followed by similar organizations on the European continent. In 1816, the American Bible Society was founded. The Bible has since been translated into many hundreds of languages and dialects. (See Appendix.) 5TC 168.2

Before 1792, foreign missions received little attention. But toward the close of the eighteenth century a great change took place. People became dissatisfied with rationalism and realized the need for divine revelation and experiential religion. From then on, foreign missions have seen unprecedented growth. (See Appendix.) 5TC 168.3

Improvements in printing have helped to circulate the Bible. With old prejudices and national exclusiveness breaking down, and the pope's having lost secular power, the way has opened in many places for the Word of God to enter. The Bible has now gone to every part of the globe. 5TC 168.4

The infidel Voltaire said: “I am weary of hearing people repeat that twelve men established the Christian religion. I will prove that one man will be enough to overthrow it.” Millions have joined in the war on the Bible. But it is far from being destroyed. Where there were a hundred copies in Voltaire's time, there are now a hundred thousand copies of the Book of God. In the words of an early Reformer, “The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.” 5TC 168.5

Whatever is built on human authority will be overthrown; but things that are founded on the rock of God's Word will stand forever. 5TC 169.1