"The French Revolution had a devastating affect on the Catholic Church, as well as religion itself throughout the nation of France. The Enlightenment had secured the idea that reason was to be worshiped more so than God, and when these ideals met with the radical thoughts inside the mind of Maximilian Robespierre (1758-1794), the church had no chance of survival in Revolutionary France. Interestingly enough the atheistic and deistic ideals of the Enlightenment which brought down the church in the first place would in turn be the same ideals that brought it back into power. In his first substantial political maneuver Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), a man who was not known for being religious, would bring back out of revolutionary exile the Catholic Church in France. This action secured Napoleon's place as a politician, showing that he could be a leader in areas other than the battlefield.
Napoleon's rise in politics, as well as his concern for religion, is a bit ironic when his family life, especially the relationship he had with his father, is taken into account. Napoleon was baptized into the Catholic faith as a child, however, he never became engrossed in the faith. His lack of personal interest in religion coupled with the political instability of his homeland may have led him to often question his belief in God. On the island of Corsica where Napoleon began his life, the Bonaparte family was one of the most prominent on the island. This prominence was due in part to the Bonaparte family heritage (which originated in Florence, Italy in the late 1200's) and Carlo Bonaparte (1746-1785)'s position in the Corsican Assembly. France had invaded the island and taken it over in 1768, which quickly resulted in the assimilation of the Corsican people into French society. Carlo did little to nothing to fight the French influence, as a matter of fact he very quickly became engrossed into the French nobility.
Napoleon never really forgave his father for betraying his homeland and becoming engrossed into French society and politics, which is why it is nothing short of ironic that Napoleon became so engrossed in government later on in his life. As Napoleon grew in power through the military and eventually in the government of France, the issue of maintaining control throughout the land began to burden the young leader, to the point where something had to be done in order to insure that his domestic support would remain strong.To quote Napoleon's Minister of Internal Affairs, Jean Chaptal (1756-1832), "The boldest operation that Bonaparte carried out during the first years of his reign was to re-establish worship upon its old foundations…"
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Armand
ponders nirvana.