The more of these articles I read about US tech firms being asked to kowtow to the political whims of the countries they operate in, the more I'm reminded of the fight in the Middle Ages between church and state. Each is dependent on the other so they can't fight an all-out war, but the politics can get pretty nasty.
Hmmm ... there was no church in the French revolution. The state/church war was mostly during the Holy Roman Empire and the 30 year war. But by the time Richelieu has finished with it - the papacy was no longer a determining factor in the continental politics.
That is just not true. The Church was front and centre in the French Revolution. The whole problem was that the first two estates (Church and Nobility) didn't want to cede power to the third estate (the Commons). Removing the King was the only path the Commons found to get their share of the power (the King was actually well-loved by his subjects, at least at the start of the Revolution, in 1789). Many churches were severely vandalised during the Revolution, and Church-imposed taxes were banned.
So yeah, without getting into the weeds, the Church was very much one of the major causes of the Revolution, and it lost plenty of it's authority as a result of the Revolution.
