Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in October 1685, ending the legal existence of French Protestantism after eighty-seven years. The Edict of Nantes had been issued by Henri IV in 1598 to end the wars of religion, granting Huguenots freedom of conscience, limited public worship, civil equality, their own courts and a set of fortified towns. The fortified towns had already been taken away in 1629, and Louis had spent two decades narrowing the rest: churches demolished on technicalities, trades and offices closed, children permitted to convert at seven, and from 1681 the dragonnades, in which troops were billeted on Protestant households with the understanding that their conduct would not be inquired into. The conversions that produced were then cited in the revocation as proof that hardly any Protestants remained. The edict ordered the remaining churches destroyed, the schools closed, the pastors exiled within a fortnight, and everyone else forbidden to leave on pain of the galleys. Between 200,000 and 300,000 left anyway, over guarded borders, to the Dutch Republic, England, Brandenburg, Switzerland and the Cape — taking silk weaving, watchmaking, banking and a substantial part of the officer class with them, and taking their account of the persecution to every Protestant capital in Europe. Frederick William of Brandenburg issued an edict inviting them within days. It was popular in France at the time and praised by bishops and by Madame de Sévigné. Toleration was restored in 1787, and full civil rights came with the Revolution. Louis is reported to have considered it the finest achievement of his reign. Vauban, who thought it a catastrophe, wrote a memorandum arguing for its reversal on economic and military grounds and was ignored.
- Year: 1685 CE
- Category: Political
