Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

The inspiration for Sacré-Cœur's construction originated on 4 September 1870, the day of the proclamation of the Third Republic, with a speech by Bishop Fournier. He considered the defeat of French troops during the Franco-Prussian War as a divine punishment following "a century of moral decline" since the French Revolution.

In the decades following the revolution, a division in French society arose, between devout Catholics and legitimist royalists on one side, and democrats, secularists, socialists, and radicals on the other.[citation needed] In 1870, a French military garrison, which had been protecting the Vatican in Rome, was withdrawn and sent to the front of the Franco-Prussian War by Napoleon III. This was followed by the secular uprising of the Paris Commune of 1870-1871, and the subsequent 1871 defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War.

Though today the basilica is asserted[when?] to be dedicated in honor of the 58,000 who lost their lives during the war, the decree of the Assemblée nationale 24 July 1873, responding to a request by the archbishop of Paris and voting its construction, specifies that it is to "expiate the crimes of the Commune.