Religion, Politics and Reconciliation in France: The Death of Archbishop Denis-Auguste Affre and the Revolution of 1848

Abstract Denis-Auguste Affre, archbishop of Paris, died on 27 June 1848, two days after being shot at the barricades while attempting to parley with insurgents during the uprising known as the June Days. This Parisian insurrection is usually seen as a moment of rupture in both the French Second Republic and the European revolutions of 1848, marking a swing towards reaction and increased repression. This article argues, however, that the case of Affre—especially efforts to commemorate him by both the French republican state and the French Catholic church and to frame him as a figure of conciliation—reveals attempts to achieve greater unity, not division, in the aftermath of a bloody civil war. It looks at how Affre was constructed as a modern martyr, straddling the boundary between religious sacrifice and civic duty, drawing on a range of texts, images, devotional objects and relics. It shows how the choice of Affre as a figure for reconciliation following the June insurrection reflected broader attempts at a closer alliance between the church and the republic following the February Revolution of 1848. By revealing contested areas of commemoration, however, it argues that responses to Affre’s death simultaneously highlighted the possibility of a different path for the relationship between the Catholic church and revolutionary regimes in nineteenth-century Europe, while also exposing continuing tensions between church and state.