From elite rule to subversive midnight mass: The political birthplace of 'O Holy Night'

In 1847, France was besieged with political tensions and instability that directly led to the Revolution of 1848. From the French Revolution of 1789 to the installation of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799, France had gone from a constitutional monarchy and republican ideals to the Reign of Terror and a military dictatorship under Napoleon. 

After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and the collapse of his reign, the monarchy was once again restored. While it was a constitutional monarchy in name, power remained in the hands of the aristocracy, the wealthy, and the clergy. Up until 1830, the period faced growing constitutional crises, increasing poverty, restrictions on the press, and an uncaring but all-powerful aristocracy, wealthy elite, and compliant clergy.

In 1830, King Louis-Philippe I became king. His July Monarchy, so named because the regime emerged from the July Revolution of 1830, continued with more of the same. 

Post-Napoleonic France had descended into a corrupt constitutional monarchy rather than a people's republic as the French Revolution envisioned. The ideals of the French Revolution of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were roadblocked by the aristocrats, very wealthy bankers, industrialists, large landowners, and the clergy.

They ensured that constitutional and political power remained in their hands. The working class, peasants, and much of the middle class remained politically excluded. France was governed by a bourgeois constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe I, claiming revolutionary legitimacy but serving a narrow elite. It only allowed about 200,000 wealthy men - a mere 1% of the population - to have the right to vote. 

The French prime minister, François Guizot, famously advised citizens to “Enrichissez-vous” (“Get rich”) if they wanted any political influence — an attitude that fuelled further resentment towards the elite.

By 1847, the political impotence of Louis-Philippe I and the failures of a sham republican democracy led to the Revolution of 1848 which overthrew the monarchy and established the Second Republic. 

In the middle of this political crisis, a small church, the Collégiale Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Roquemaure, 673km south of Paris, commissioned a poem to celebrate the restoration of their church organ.

Roquemaure was a small provincial town on the Rhône River. Its economy was mainly wine growing, agriculture, and river trade. The majority of its residents were peasants, vineyard workers, artisans and labourers, who all lived a subsistence existence, especially after poor harvests in the 1840s and rising food prices (1846–47).

A 39-year-old, politically aware law intellectual from the Village, Placide Cappeau, who was an accomplished poet at the time, was tasked to write the poem to celebrate the restored church organ. Cappeau got his friend, Adolphe Adam from Paris, to write the musical score for the poem.

It debuted at the local parish of Collégiale Saint-Jean-Baptiste on 24 December 1847, during its Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, as “Minuit, chrétiens” (Midnight, Christians). Today, the world knows it as the Christmas hymn “O Holy Night.” Adolphe Adam was also the composer of the ballet Giselle in 1841.

The hymn was written during a period of civil unrest, political exclusion, economic exploitation, and a very powerful, uncaring wealthy elite.  The people demanded electoral reform, criticised inequality and the lack of social protections, and many wanted the monarchy abolished altogether. Placide Cappeau and Adolphe Adam bravely composed a hymn that subversively called for the ideals of the French Revolution, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, to be central to public life once again.

The hymn was initially well received at its first performance, though some opposed it. Later, others openly criticised it and showed open hostility after its initial performance.  

It then spread quickly and was sung in other churches. But to the powers that be, Placide Cappeau was politically suspect. The monarchy and the church did not welcome his republican, anti-clerical, socialist and abolitionist ideas. One critic dismissed it as: “A hymn lacking musical taste and religious spirit.”

In 1848, several lines in “Minuit, chrétiens” were deemed too politically charged, and its overall message too revolutionary, even though they sound devotional today. A “weary world” and “chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother” upset both the monarchy and the clergy. 

But the hymn summed up the French people’s mood. It became the launch pad for a second revolution, the Revolution of 1848. Louis-Philippe was ageing and out of touch. In February 1848, demonstrations began against the king. Workers and students erected barricades in the streets of Paris. On 24 February 1848, two months to the day that the hymn was first sung, the palace walls shook and King Louis-Philippe I resigned.

The hymn contains these immortal words: 

"Truly, he taught us to love one another;

His law is love, and his gospel is peace.

Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,

And in his name all oppression shall cease.”

Slavery was finally abolished - for a second time - in France on 27 April 1848.

The slave is not a slave by choice. He was made a slave by an exploitative system. The poor woman is not poor by choice. She was made poor by a wealthy elite. The child is not on the streets because he is bad. He is on the streets because the needed social protections failed him.  

The child is our brother. The poor woman is our sister. The slave is our mother. Our father. 

'O Holy Night' is not just a Christmas carol. It is a social critique and a moral challenge to power. Written on the eve of a revolution. For a revolution. 

Lorenzo A Davids