The history of the church of Vétheuil at the time of the French Revolution is inseparable from that of the abbot Jean Nicolas Guillaume de Gouville de Bretteville who was parish priest of Vétheuil from 1772 to 1820.
A brief review of the facts is in order:
Before the revolution, Catholicism was the state religion.
On November 2, 1789, after several weeks of debate, the National Assembly decreed by a large majority that the property of the clergy belonged to the nation.
In 1791, priests were asked to take an oath of loyalty to the Nation. Impossible for them, who declared that they depended only on the Pope. Some of them accepted to take the oath and became the so-called swearers, others refused and went into hiding - they were called the refractory priests. Caught, they were imprisoned or killed.
In 1793 it is the ultimate point of the shock. Monasteries and convents are closed, abbeys are sold. Churches are emptied of religious objects. Bells were melted down to make cannons. Graves were emptied to make saltpetre. Churches became stables and warehouses.
This period was the beginning of what has been called "revolutionary vandalism. From vandalism to mass destruction, some took the step out of hatred of the clergy, out of rage to destroy religious symbols or out of greed.
"Abandoned churches, bell towers without bells, cemeteries without crosses, saints without heads..."Chateaubriand.
The Catholic religion was henceforth forbidden. The concordat of 1801 signed between the Consulate, the French government and Rome put an end to this period of unrest. The State then took over the salaries of the Catholic priests and took possession of the buildings, with the Church being responsible for their upkeep. All this lasted a little more than 100 years until the law of 1905 which separated the churches, in other words the religions, and the State which stopped financing them. This is the period we are currently living in.
What happened in Vétheuil at that time? There is no direct evidence of vandalism, but all the statues left empty around the west and south portals testify to a systematic destruction of all the statuary. The interior of the church would have been spared from looters and destroyers, thus preserving the precious heritage, the treasures that we know today.
As for the abbot of Gouville de Bretteville, he had a very dark period. :
He took an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1791 and became a member of the General Council of the commune in 1792. In this capacity, he drew up the civil status certificates. During the Terror, when worship was forbidden, he hid with the Benedictine nuns of Villarceaux.
In January 1799, the abbot was considered dangerous and deported to the island of Ré. In spite of a petition from the inhabitants in his favor, he was not released until March of the following year. He was confirmed as the parish priest of Vétheuil in 1803 and took over the rectory. He resigned in 1820 and died peacefully at his home in 1823.
Surviving the terror, it owed its longevity ... to the English fleet (whose presence at sea forced the revolutionaries to give up the transport of the proscribed to Guyana where they would probably have perished), to Bonaparte whose coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire put an end to the revolutionary era, and to an extraordinary resistance.
The testimony of this revolutionary period that is still visible in the church is on the altar of The Chapel of the Charitons. It is the piece of plank (*) bearing the inscription " The French people recognizes the Supreme Being" of which the abbot of Gouville de Bretteville used the right part to repair the partly broken altar.
(*) This board was fixed on the door of the church.
