Having begun by waging this profane warfare upon their own glorious dead, another scene of the fatal drama immediately succeeded.  The same author continues:  “Having massacred the great of the present and insulted the illustrious of former ages, nothing remained to the revolutionists but to direct their vengeance against heaven itself.  Pache, Hebert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality publicly expressed their determination ’to dethrone the God of heaven, as well as the monarchs of earth.’  To accomplish this design, they prevailed on Gobet, the apostate constitutional bishop of Paris, to appear at the bar of the Assembly, accompanied by some of the clergy of his diocese, and there abjure the Christian faith.  He declared ’that no other national religion was now required but that of Liberty, equality, and morality.’  Many of the constitutional bishops and clergy in the Convention joined in the proposition.  Crowds of drunken artisans and shameless prostitutes crowded to the bar, and trampled under their feet the sacred vases, consecrated for ages to the holiest purposes of religion.  The churches were stripped of all their ornaments; their plate and valuable contents brought in heaps to the municipality and the Convention, from whence they were sent to the mint to be melted down.  Trampling under foot the images of our Savior and the Virgin, they elevated, amid shouts of applause, the busts of Marat and Lepelletier, and danced around them, singing parodies on the Halleluiah, and dancing the Carmagnole.

“Shortly after a still more indecent exhibition took place before the assembly....  Hebert and Chaumette, and their associates, appeared at the bar and declared ’that God did not exist, and that the worship of Reason was to be substituted in his stead.’  A veiled female, arrayed in blue drapery, was brought into the Assembly; and Chaumette, taking her by the hand, ‘Mortals,’ said he, ’cease to tremble before the powerless thunders of a God whom your fears have created.  Henceforth acknowledge no divinity but Reason.  I offer you its noblest and purest image; if you must have idols, sacrifice only to this.’  When, letting fall the veil, he exclaimed, ’Fall before the august Senate of Freedom, O Veil of Reason!’ At the same time, the goddess appeared personified by a celebrated beauty, the wife of Momoro, a printer, known in more than one character to most of the Convention.  The goddess after being embraced by the president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amid an immense crowd, to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Deity.  There she was elevated on a high altar, and received the adoration of all present, while the young women, her attendants, whose alluring looks already sufficiently indicated their profession, retired into the chapels around the choir, where every species of licentiousness and obscenity was indulged in without control, with hardly any veil from the public gaze.  To such a length was this carried, that Robespierre afterward declared that Chaumette deserved death for the abominations he had permitted on that occasion.  Thenceforward that ancient edifice was called the Temple of Reason.”