Eliminating Religion from Daily Life with the Revolutionary Calendar of France

During the revolutionary era in France, in which the National Convention took control of revolutionary France, a new calendar was adopted. This revolutionary calendar was implemented in November of 1793, in an attempt to replace the Gregorian calendar completely. The National Convention adopted a new calendar in France at the time of a revolution in an attempt to increase the number of work days on peasants and reduce the influence of Christianity throughout the country; however most of the general public as well as government officials reacted negatively.

One major reason as of why the revolutionary calendar was put into effect was in order to eliminate religion from daily life. The traditional Gregorian calendar was originally established in 1582 by the Roman Catholic Church, to many the Gregorian calendar represented the old order. It is believed that the establishment of a new calendar was an effort to steer away from old order. A major leader of the calendar reform committee, Gilbert Romme, believed the church calendar was shaped by ignorant people in order to mark the progress of fanaticism (Document two). When the new calendar was put into place it represented a shift from the traditional old order. The new calendar had many significant changes, for example, each month was now based off of weather patterns; instead of religious holidays, as depicted in document four the new calendar used pictures of women (Document four). By establishing months around harvest related concepts and weather patterns the new calendar engaged logic based thinking instead of religious associations. These changes demonstrated that the new, more secular, calendar was shying away from the old order, no longer based on religion. In this attempt to...

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...e revolutionary calendar because of its attempts to remove religion from French. However, the upper class republicans supported the calendar, a reason behind this may have been the fact that they were being honored on the day of rest in place of religion. Napoleon I eventually led to the demise of the revolutionary calendar in 1806. This was partially because Napoleonic officials did not support the new calendar.

In conclusion, The National Convention adopted a new calendar in France at the time of a revolution in an attempt to increase the number of work days on peasants and eliminate religion; however most of the general public as well as government officials were extremely displeased and many refused to use the calendar altogether. It wasn’t even twenty years before Napoleon I abolished the revolutionary calendar, restoring the traditional Gregorian calendar.