Anti-Sacrilege Act

The Anti-Sacrilege Act (1825–1830) was a French law against blasphemy and sacrilege passed in January 1825 under King Charles X. The law was never applied (except for a minor point) and was later revoked at the beginning of the July monarchy under King Louis-Philippe.

In April 1824, King Louis XVIII's government, headed by the Ultra-royalist Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Villèle, introduced a first draft of the law into Parliament. The elections of December 1823, conducted under restricted census suffrage, had produced a heavy ultraroyalist majority in the Chamber of Deputies, which was therefore dubbed Chambre retrouvée (in reference to the ultra-royalist Chambre introuvable elected after the Restoration). Despite this majority, the bill failed as it was not accepted by the Chamber of Peers.

After the accession of Charles X in September of the same year, Villèle's government decided to seize the opportunity and reintroduced the bill, giving an increase in the stealing of sacred vessels (chalices and ciboria) as the reason.

The Villèle government initially envisaged graduating sentences. Concerning profanations, the sentences were to change according to various cases. If the profanation had been done on vessels containing holy objects, the crime was supposed to be punished by perpetual forced labour. If the profanation had been done on vessels containing consecrated hosts, the punishment was death. If it was on the hosts themselves, the death sentence was the same as that given to parricides: cutting off the right hand followed by decapitation (a sentence in force during the Ancien Régime and repealed during the Revolution, but reestablished in 1810). Following the debates, this last punishment was later replaced by an "honorable amend" made by the criminal before dying.

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