Dear Jerome,

A short and concise question deserves a short and precise answer, which unfortunately will not be possible.

Let us examine the facts available: We know from existing records that in 1790 there were roughly 23,000 priests and 125 bishops exercising their office in the 44 major (urban) dioceses of France. Of these numbers about 13,000 priests and 4 bishops swore the oath to the new constitution, leaving about 10,000 ecclesiastics unaccounted for in the urban areas. Other evidence suggests that the percentage of clergy refusing the oath was much higher in the rural areas. By mathematical interpolation we can cautiously assume a total of 12,000 to 15,000 clerics who remained loyal to Rome.

Records indicate also that by 1794 more than 10,000 ecclesiastics were exiled, some into the penal colony of French Guiana, others were simply allowed to leave the country and found their way England, Canada or th US. We could now assume that 2,000 to 5,000 clerics perished during the reign of terror and this figure is probably pretty close, but it really is more muddled than it might appear.

Consider that the "juring" clergy really ceased to be part of the hierarchy when they took the oath to the new republic and were summarily excommunicated by Pope Pius VI. These individuals soon lost favor with the public and were exposed to the same perils of exile, imprisonment or death at the hands of the state or loyalist Catholics. Many of them perished along-side their refractory brothers during Robespierre's reign of terror, but should not be considered "ecclesiastics." Many of them would have been included with the 10,000 exiled clerics mentioned above, but without distinction regarding their ecclesiastical status.

In fact, as an ironic twist of history, many true ecclesiatics were released from prison or returned from exile after Robespierre's death and may have fared better as a group than the constitutional or Jacobite priesthood.

As you can see, numerical precision is not always the strongest attribute of history.

For this reason, it is safe to say that it is commonly accepted to number the total deaths during the French Revolution as between 20,000 and 40,000, among them several thousand clergy.

God bless,
Brian