Chaumette, an enthusiast, who had procured the abolition of corporal punishment in educational institutions and of legally regulated prostitution, persuaded the Commune to consecrate the cathedral of Notre Dame to "the worship of Reason." Within the church was erected a temple with the inscription _À la Philosophie_, the porch of which was decorated with busts of the great philosophers. On the dedication day, when the door was thrown open, a young actress, Mademoiselle Candeille, representing Liberty, issued forth, and a hymn to Liberty, written by Marie-Joseph Chénier and set to music by Gossec, composer to the Republic, was sung in her honour. On another occasion Mademoiselle Maillard of the Opera, a stately and beautiful woman, chosen to represent the goddess of Reason, was carried shoulder-high out of the old cathedral in a chair decked with garlands of oak leaves and was escorted by trumpeters, a crowd of red-capped citizens, and a number of members of the Convention, to the assembly hall of that body, whose president solemnly impressed a kiss on her brow. But these ceremonies, innocent in themselves, were degraded by the ribald manner in which they were imitated by the mob. Women of bad character had themselves carried in triumphal processions as goddesses of Reason. Wild revels were held in churches; the church of Saint-Eustache was actually turned into a tavern. The relics of Saint Geneviève were burned, and such a bonfire of wooden images of saints, prayer-books, and Old and New Testaments was lit on the Place de la Grève that the flames rose to the second stories of the houses.