The Huguenots Of Paris And The Coming Of Religious Freedom 1685 1789

How did the Huguenots of Paris survive, and even prosper, in the eighteenth century when the majority Catholic population was notorious for its hostility to Protestantism? Why, by the end of the Old Regime, did public opinion overwhelmingly favour giving Huguenots greater rights? This study of the growth of religious toleration in Paris traces the specific history of the Huguenots after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. David Garrioch identifies the roots of this transformation of attitudes towards the minority Huguenot population in their own methods of resistance to persecution and pragmatic government responses to it, as well as in the particular environment of Paris. Above all, this book identifies the extraordinary shift in Catholic religious culture that took place over the century as a significant cause of change, set against the backdrop of cultural and intellectual transformation that we call the Enlightenment.

This book investigates the reasons why the Catholic population of Paris increasingly tolerated the minority Protestant Huguenot population between 1685 and 1789.

The Huguenots and their struggle for freedom of conscience and freedom of worship are largely unknown outside of France. The entrance of the sixteenth-century Reformation in France, first through the teachings of Luther, then of Calvin, brought three centuries of religious wars before Protestants were considered fully French and obtained the freedom to worship God without repression and persecution from the established church and the tyrannical state. From the first martyrs early in the sixteenth century to the last martyrs at the end of the eighteenth century, Protestants suffered from the intolerance of church and state, the former refusing genuine reform and unwilling to relinquish privileges, the latter rejecting any threats to the absolute monarchy. The rights gained with one treaty or edict of pacification were snatched away with another royal decree declaring Protestants heretics and outlaws. Political and religious intrigues, conspiracies, assassinations, and broken promises contributed to the turmoil and tens of thousands were exiled or fled to places of refuge. Others spent decades as slaves on the king’s galleys or imprisoned. They lost their possessions; they lost their lives. They did not lose their faith in a sovereign God.

Aimed firmly at the student reader, this handbook offers an overview of the full range of the history of France, from the origins of the concept of post-Roman "Francia," through the emergence of a consolidated French monarchy and the development of both nation-state and global empire into the modern era, forward to the current complexities of a modern republic integrated into the European Union and struggling with the global legacies of its past. Short, incisive contributions by a wide range of expert scholars offer both a spine of chronological overviews and a diverse spectrum of up-to-date insights into areas of key interest to historians today. From the ravages of the Vikings to the role of gastronomy in the definition of French culture, from Caribbean slavery to the place of Algerians in present-day France, from the role of French queens in medieval diplomacy to the youth-culture explosion of the 1960s and the explosions of France’s nuclear weapons program, this handbook provides accessible summaries and selected further reading to explore any and all of these issues further, in the classroom and beyond.

This volume offers an encompassing portrait of the Huguenots, among the best known of early modern religious minorities. It investigates the principal lines of historical development and suggests the interpretative frameworks that scholars have advanced for understanding the Huguenot experience.

Facing the Revocation' tells the story of one French Protestant (Huguenot) family, the Robillard de Champagnes, as they faced the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, issued under Louis XIV, which criminalized their religion in 1685. Carolyn Chappell Lougee challenges the way Huguenot history has been told for 300 years, ever since the Huguenots themselves set its principal interpretive lines, thereby offering new insights into the reign of Louis XIV. Denying the standard ascription of deeper faith to the Huguenots who emigrated and venal motives to those who remained in France, this study shows how complex the considerations were-at once social, familial, economic, and political, as well as religious-that impelled individuals and families either to leave the country or stay and convert to the king's religion.

Huguenot refugees were everywhere in the early modern world. French Protestant exiles fleeing persecution following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, they scattered around Europe, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, and even remote islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Global Refuge provides the first truly international history of the Huguenot diaspora. The story begins with dreams of Eden, as beleaguered religious migrants sought suitable retreats to build perfect societies far from the political storms of Europe. In order to build these communities, however, the Huguenots needed patrons, forcing them to navigate the world of empires. The refugees promoted themselves as the chosen people of empire, religious heroes who also possessed key skills that could strengthen the British and Dutch states. As a result, French Protestants settled around the world: they tried to make silk in South Carolina; they planted vineyards in South Africa; and they peopled vulnerable frontiers from New England to Suriname. This embrace of empire led to a gradual abandonment of the Huguenots' earlier utopian ambitions and ability to maintain their languages and churches in preparation for an eventual return to France. For over a century they learned that only by blending in and by mastering foreign institutions could they prosper. While the Huguenots never managed to find a utopia or to realize their imperial sponsors' visions of profits, The Global Refuge demonstrates how this diasporic community helped shape the first age of globalization and influenced the reception of future refugee populations.