To what extend did the French Revolution archive the goals of Enlightenment?

The
French Revolution certainly achieved one of the goals of the Enlightenment by turning reason
into a god. During the radical phase of the Revolution, a full-scale campaign at
de-Christianization took place, an attempt to remove Christianity from French public
life.

In the eyes of the more radical revolutionaries, Christianity had been
a prop to the old system of monarchical government. The Catholic Church in France, the First
Estate of the realm, enjoyed enormous privileges, and became associated in the minds of many
with the rampant corruption and injustice of the ancien regime.

In their deep suspicion of the spiritual and temporal authority of the Catholic Church,
revolutionaries were very much children of the Enlightenment. France had been home to such
thinkers as Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert, who were positively scathing of the role that the
Church played in public life. Instead of blindingly accepting the Church's authority, they
argued, man should follow his own reason.

During the radical phase of the
Revolution, this notion was taken to absurd lengths when festivals to Reason, personified as a
kind of pagan goddess, took place throughout France. Leading revolutionaries such as Robespierre
took such ludicrous spectacles very seriously indeed, believing them to be a fulfillment of
Enlightenment ideals as well as promoting loyalty to the new regime.