ABSTRACT
Regionalists favored the catholic church as an institution for political as well as religious reasons, so their alliance was often a marriage of convenience. Barrès stressed the teaching of sacred songs and hymns in schools, despite the fact that he possessed little religious conviction for much of his life. He argued that traditional religious institutions aided regionalists through their emphasis on family. Barrès also wanted these institutions to fight new decrees instituted by the centralized Third Republic government, including the dissolution of monasteries in 1903, the separation of church and state in 1905, and the creation of a newly nationalized secular educational system. Regionalist poet Frédéric Mistral also supported sacred institutions, as illustrated in his claim that the Félibrige was inherently religious. 1
