Bells rang, cannons fired, and crowds cheered the procession set forth from the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand. It was a feast for the eyes and ears of as many as 50, people gathered to watch 1 β but also, its organizers hoped, a feast for the soul. Its centerpiece was not a float, but an enormous crucifix β 42 feet long, 10 feet wide, adorned with a nine-foot-tall statue of the crucified Christ, perhaps weighing more than 6, pounds in total.
The people of Clermont β or many of them, anyway β were here despite a light rain to rededicate their city to God and the Catholic Church. The faithful had been coming for weeks, for sermons and hymns, ceremonies and retreats, communion and confession. Local priests had stepped aside for a group of 16 visiting missionaries, here to spread the faith not in pagan lands abroad, but home in France itself. The terrible sins of the Revolution were still festering a generation later.
Now the Church was calling its children home. Marching through the streets of Clermont were more than 3, people, including hundreds of clergy, National Guard divisions, large contingents of young women dressed in white and older women dressed in black, and 12 units of men, taking turns carrying the massive cross through the streets.
Long live the cross! Long live the king! A cross-planting procession in Reims, Artist unknown. Nothing bad has happened to me, just a mix of procrastination and a big, complex tangle of a topic. Religion is tricky β who knew? You just heard Bry Jensen of the Pontifacts podcast reading the cold open, a look at one of the most dramatic set-pieces of the Bourbon Restoration: the revival missions trying to bring the Catholic Church back into the lives of her wayward French parishioners.
The mission in Clermont was just one of hundreds of similar missions held across France during the Bourbon Restoration. They were among the most prominent and public symbols in the period of the traditionalist side of the Restoration monarchy β the efforts to restore the pre-Revolutionary union of throne and altar. But not everyone joined a mission choir or hauled a giant crucifix through town. France in the Restoration was a complex religious tapesty.
