 Lefebvre belonged to an identifiable strand of right @-@ wing political and religious opinion in French society that originated among the defeated royalists after the 1789 French Revolution . Lefebvre 's political and theological outlook mirrored that of a significant number of conservative members of French society under the French Third Republic ( 1870 – 1940 ) . The Third Republic was reft by conflicts between the secular Left and the Catholic Right , with many individuals on both sides espousing distinctly radical positions ( see , for example , the article on the famous Dreyfus affair ) . Thus it has been said that " Lefebvre was ... a man formed by the bitter hatreds that defined the battle lines in French society and culture from the French Revolution to the Vichy regime " . 
