Festival of the Supreme Being

Robespierre had increasingly become concerned at dechristinanisation policies and sought to instil a new spiritual movement suitable to the principles of the revolution.  On the 7th May 1794 Robespierre supported a decree in the convention making the Cult of the Supreme Being the official religion of the Republic.  A nationwide Festival of the Supreme Being was held on the 8th of June.  Robespierre who was President of the Convention that week led the procession to the Champ de Mars.  Robespierre at the height of the festivities descended from a huge cardboard and plaster mountain created by David.  Jacques-Alexis Thuriot, was heard saying, "Look at the bugger; it’s not enough for him to be master, he has to be God"

There were increasing concerns that Robespierre in the wake of the passing of Law 22 and the Festival of the Cult of Supreme Being was seeking to become a dictator.  Thus it was that Robespierre was more isolated than he had ever been when he stood to address his concerns to the Convention at the start of Thermidor.

Germaine De Staël on the Cult of the Supreme Being.  Taken from Considerations on the Principle events of the French Revolution, Germaine De Staël, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis (2008) p373

The most indecent irreligion served as a lever for the subversion of the social order.  There was a kind of consistency in founding crime upon impiety: it is homage paid to the intimate union of religious opinions with morality.  Robespierre conceived the idea of celebrating a festival in honour of the Supreme Being, flattered himself, doubtless, with being able to rest his political ascendancy on a religion arranged according to his own notions; as those have frequently done who have wished to seize the supreme power.  But in the procession of this impious festival he decided to walk at the head of the procession in order to claim pre-eminence over his colleagues; and from that time he was lost.  

Letters from Helen Maria Williams on the Cult of the Supreme Being.  Taken from Letters Written in France, Broadview Literary Texts, Ormskirk (2002) p174-175

But let us leave martyrs of liberty; and return to the polluted festival instituted by a tyrant.  David ever ready to fulfil the mandates of his master Robespierre, steps forth, marshals the procession, and, like the herald in Othello, “orders every man to put himself into triumph.”

At this spot, by David’s command, the mothers are to embrace their daughters-at that, the fathers are to clasp their son-here, the old are to bless the young, and there, the young are to kneel to the old-upon this boulevard the people are to sing- upon that, they must dance- at noon they must listen in silence, and at sun-set they must rend the air with acclamations.

Ah, what was then become of those civic festivals which hailed the first glories of the revolution! What was become of that sublime federation of an assembled nation which had nobly shaken off its ignominious fetters, and exulted in its new-born freedom!  What has become of those moments when no emotion were pre-ordained, no feelings measured out, no acclamation decreed; but when every bosom beat high with admiration, when every eye melted into tears, and the vault of heaven resounded with bursts of unpremeditated applause!