1. France
On November 2nd 1789, the French national assembly passed a decree placing church property at the disposal of the nation, and the process of expropriation of the Catholic Church began (Secularization; Secularization [legal]). Over the years that followed, first church and crown property were requisitioned for auction or sale (biens nationaux de première origine; “Biens nationaux of first origin”), then from 1792 also property belonging to families (mostly noble) that had fled the French Revolution (1789) (bie…