Maréchaux's monograph successfully rescues priests who married during the French Revolution from previous historians’ misconceptions that contributed to a dearth of serious study of this subject. He argues the dechristianization campaign of Year II (1793–1794) and the resulting marriages of priests did not comprise an inconsequential episode of revolutionary excess but had long-term import, namely these men's contributions to the revolution and their social and professional acceptance under subsequent regimes.
Maréchaux refutes “the Christian interpretation” promoted by Bernard Plongeron, John McManners, and Nigel Aston, which stresses the eighteenth century as a golden age of Catholicism and rejects the long-term impact of revolutionary attacks on the Church. He instead subscribes to the vision of revolutionary religious history supported by Claude Langlois, Michel Vovelle, and Dominique Julia who see the Enlightenment as playing a definite role in weakening the Church and secularizing society. Like Vovelle, Maréchaux situates the events of year II and the marriage of priests in a long-term dechristianization that cannot be understood if historians interpret them as an accident of fleeting Revolutionary circumstances rather than the result of a paradigm shift.
His book is based on painstaking archival research, especially in the Caprara letters of priests requesting reconciliation with the Church after the Concordat. He assembled a biographical dictionary of 4,200 married priests that is accessible online and based on these letters, departmental archives, and many early histories written by clergymen and “érudits locaux” (local savants) in an effort to condemn and minimize the number and importance of married priests whom they perceived to have disgraced the Church. The second half of each chapter is often composed of substantial transcriptions from these sources. Despite using many of the same documents, Claire Cages's gendered and cultural approach in Unnatural Frenchmen: The Politics of Priestly Celibacy and Marriage, 1720–1815 contrasts markedly with Maréchaux's focus on historiographical debates and individual priests’ trajectories in way that make these two monographs on the same subject unique.
The book's six chapters are organized in a chronological and thematic fashion with impressive appendices. Each chapter begins with a historical summary of the time period in question with a particular emphasis on revolutionary Church history. For instance, chapter 1 provides an overview of the Church's organization at the end of the Old Regime, and chapter 2 charts the role of the clergy in the early Revolution and explains how clerical marriage became an issue of importance to revolutionaries.
Each chapter and subheading begins with pertinent questions Maréchaux then proceeds to answer. For example, chapter 2 addresses the question: what role did future married priests play in the events of the Estates-General and the transition to the National Assembly? Maréchaux acknowledges the Civil Constitution of the Clergy as a defining moment in creating the circumstances that lead to priests’ marriages. The resulting schism between refractory priests (who rejected the Civil Constitution) and constitutional priests meant that many of the latter were ill-prepared for their role in the newly organized Church, lacking acceptance from their parishioners and support from their superiors.
Chapter 3 responds to the question of how the constitutional, patriotic priest that the National Convention originally sought to protect became the target of popular and official dechristianization campaigns. As Maréchaux demonstrates, by and large it would be the constitutional, not the refractory priests, who would go on to marry either voluntarily or as the result of coercion during the revolutionary decade. He convincingly argues that instead of being inconsequential, dechristianization was actually quite effective: 80% of 1,377 priests who explained their actions to Cardinal Caprara cited the Terror as their motivation (79). Furthermore, Maréchaux proves the “christian” interpretation of these marriages is incorrect. They were not simulated marriages as Plongeron presupposed, rather the majority admitted they consummated their marriages and over 54% had children to prove it (103). Maréchaux's concludes that the marriages were not an ephemeral footnote in the history of the revolution. Rather the fact that that 90% of those who wrote Caprara expressed their desire to stay married and their subsequent successful social integration proves the long-term significance of priests’ marriages in an increasingly secular France (83).
Chapter 4 gives a history of religious policy under the Directory, Consulate, and Empire, and discusses those who chose to marry during this time, including Talleyrand. Maréchaux contends that government elites, including Napoleon, did not care about religion or the Church's interests and after ten years of religious controversy neither really did the public, otherwise these men would not have been able to stay married or achieve the professional success they did in such great numbers. Maréchaux again counters the “christian” interpretation of priests’ marriages in chapter 5 by establishing that, contrary to what Grégoire asserted, former priests seemed to be happy in their marriages, with 80% telling Caprara in poetic language that conjugal love made it impossible to leave their spouses (102).
The final chapter returns to the beginning of Bonaparte's reign to offer a detailed history of the negotiation and implementation of the Concordat and its effects on married priests. Here Maréchaux's focus on the history of the Concordat and Caprara's mission owes a great debt to historians who do not figure in his citations, particularly Rodney Dean. This is a striking feature of his work: recent historiography is scarce. However, limiting bibliographical references, while using endnotes to explain terms familiar to revolutionary historians seems to be an editorial strategy designed to make his research accessible to a wider public.
Indeed, the histories that begin each chapter are suitable for novices or those seeking clear, concise narratives of revolutionary religious history. His prose is lucid, lively, and occasionally humorous in a way that makes it approachable even to non-native French speakers. Nevertheless, his work is not simplistic; the specialist will benefit from his transcriptions of primary sources, engagement in historiographical debates, and his appendices contain a wealth of sociological information on married priests that make this required reading for anyone studying revolutionary church history.
