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How did Maximilien Robespierre’s religious beliefs differ from the de-Christianization movement?

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Eighteenth-century painted portrait of Maximilien de Robespierre wearing a brown striped coat, high collar, and white cravat, set against a plain background. — Maximilien Robespierre One of the leading figures of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre.

Maximilien Robespierre’s religious views were fundamentally at odds with the radical de-Christianization movement led by figures such as Jacques-René Hébert and his followers, the Hébertists.12

While the Hébertists sought to eradicate Roman Catholic institutions and promoted the atheistic "worship of Reason," often turning churches into "Temples of Reason," Robespierre strongly disapproved of these actions. As a Deist influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robespierre believed in the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.132

Rather than pursuing atheism, Robespierre sought to unify revolutionaries around a civic religion. He denounced the "masquerades" of the cult of reason and instead established the cult of the Supreme Being, which he formally led during a festival in the Tuileries Gardens in June 1794. Ultimately, Robespierre viewed the radical de-Christianization campaign as an excessive and divisive policy that threatened the stability of the Revolutionary government.12