Anti-clerical parades are held, and the Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel, is forced to resign his duties and made to replace his miter with the red "Cap of Liberty."

Gobel was born in the town of Thann in Alsace to a lawyer to the Sovereign Council of Alsace and tax collector for the Seigneury of Thann.

After outstanding success in his early schooling in Porrentruy, he studied at the Jesuit college in Colmar, then theology in the German College in Rome, from which he graduated in 1743.
 
Ordained a Catholic priest in 1750, Gobel then became a member of the cathedral chapter of the Prince-Bishop of Basel, Simon Nikolaus Euseb von Montjoye-Hirsingen, based in Porrentruy.

In 1771 he was appointed the auxiliary bishop of the diocese for the section that was situated in French territory, being named by the Holy See as a titular bishop in partibus of Lydda.

He consecrated the next Prince-Bishop, Friedrich Ludwig Franz von Wangen zu Geroldseck, on March 3, 1776.

Found to have been living beyond his means, he was relieved of his duties by Wangen zu Geroldseck's successor, Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach, in 1782.

After this he began to espouse "reformist" ideas.

His political life began when he was elected deputy to the Estates-General of 1789 by the clergy of the Bailiwick of Huningue.

The turning-point of his life was Gobel's action in taking the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (January 3, 1791), in favor of which he had declared himself since May 5, 1790.

The document gives the appointment of priests to the electoral assemblies, and, after taking the oath, Gobel had become so popular that he was elected constitutional bishop in several dioceses.

He chose the Archbishopric of Paris, and in spite of the difficulties which he had to encounter before he could enter into possession, he took up office on March 17, 1791 and was consecrated on March 27 by eight bishops, including Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.

This action had been rejected by the Holy See, which has never recognized him as a legitimate holder of the office, and continues to hold the canonical archbishop, Antoine-Eléonore-Léon Le Clerc de Juigné, as the legitimate Archbishop of Paris during this period.

On November 8, 1792, Gobel had been appointed administrator of Paris.

His public display of anti-clericalism is most likely a careful tactic to ensure the sympathy of politicians: among other things, he has declared himself opposed to clerical celibacy.

On the 17th Brumaire in the year II (November 7, 1793), he comes before the bar of the National Convention for his activities as civil commissioner in Porrentruy, and, in a famous scene, resigns his episcopal functions, proclaiming that he does so for love of the people, and through respect for their wishes.

The previous night, a delegation from the Commune led by Jacques Hébert, Chaumette and Anarchis Cloots had demanded that he publicly renounce his faith or be put to death by the people.

The followers of Hébert, who are pursuing their anti-Christian policy, claim Gobel as their representative.

At the same time, Hébert's rival Maximilien Robespierre views Gobel as an atheist—although he is not accused of apostasy, and never publicly professes atheism.

Thomas Paine, knowing that he would probably be arrested and executed, and following in the tradition of early eighteenth-century British deism, had written the first part of The Age of Reason before his arrest and imprisonment in France.

Assaulting organized "revealed" religion by combining a compilation of the many inconsistencies he found in the Bible with his own advocacy of deism, Paine calls for "free rational inquiry" into all subjects, especially religion.

The Age of Reason critique on institutionalized religion results in only a brief upsurge in deistic thought in America, but Paine is derided by the public and abandoned by his friends.

Regarded as an ally of the Girondins, he is seen with increasing disfavor by the Montagnards who were now in power, and in particular by Robespierre.

A decree is passed at the end of 1793 excluding foreigners from their places in the Convention (Anacharsis Cloots is also deprived of his place).

Paine is arrested and imprisoned in December 1793.

He protests and claims that he is a citizen of America, which is an ally of Revolutionary France, rather than of Great Britain, which is by this time at war with France.

However, Gouverneur Morris, the American ambassador to France, does not press his claim, and Paine will later write that Morris had connived at his imprisonment.

Paine thinks that George Washington has abandoned him, and he will quarrel with Washington for the rest of his life.

Years later, he will write a scathing open letter to Washington, accusing him of private betrayal of their friendship and public hypocrisy as general and president, and concluding the letter by saying "the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any." (Paine, Thomas. "Letter to George Washington, July 30, 1796: "On Paine's Service to America"". Retrieved July 3, 2012.)