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The National
Huguenot Society
Cyndi's List on
Huguenots
The Huguenot Society
of America
The Huguenot Refuge Database
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The Huguenots
Following the Protestant Reformation of the first half of the 16th
Century, the members of the Protestant
Reformed Church of France came to be known by the name
Huguenots.
These were historically French
Calvinists. The Huguenots were well
known for their violent opposition to the
Roman Catholic Church and its
focus on rituals. Their numbers grew rapidly, particularly with
nobles and city-dwellers. While they faced periodic persecution
from the beginning of the reformation, it was this increase in size and
influence during the 1550s that made the Catholic factions in France
uncomfortable. By 1562, their population was especially numerous
in the southern and central parts of the country. At their peak, they still remained a small segment of the general French
population when compared to the Catholics. The strained
relations between Protestant and Catholics finally erupted in a
series of eight civil wars (1562-1598), known as the
French Wars of
Religion.
On March 1, 1562, a faction of the Catholic
House of Guise attacked a
Huguenot service in Wassy (northeastern France); 30 Huguenots were
killed and more were injured. This massacre marked the
beginning of the Wars of Religion, and sparked the Huguenots into building
a large army and cavalry, led by
Admiral Gaspard de Coligny.
Henry
of Navarre and the
House of Bourbon joined the Huguenots, adding wealth
to the Protestant strength. Since both the House of Guise and House of Bourbon had staked a
claim to the French throne, the war was eventually very much a feud between these
two noble families.
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The darkest point in this war came in 1572, with what was to be known as
the
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The Queen-Mother,
Catherine de Medici, had arranged for the marriage of her daughter
Marguerite to Henry of Navarre as a means to gather all the Huguenot
leaders in Paris so they could be killed. At 2 a.m. on 24 August,
St. Bartholomew's Day, the church bells rang signaling the soldiers to
attack. Admiral Coligny and several dozen other Huguenot leaders
were murdered at the inn where they were staying. This started
public riots in which thousands of Huguenots were murdered by the Paris
mob. Historians have pointed out that Huguenots were often
wealthy, and thus the mob may have been driven more by envy than
religious zeal. The massacres spread to the countryside in the
weeks that followed, with tens of thousands of Huguenots being killed.
In Rome, Pope Gregory
XIII's reaction was one of jubilation, and church
bells rang for a public day of thanksgiving.
 On
the death of the king in 1589, Henry of Navarre legally became the king
of France. However the Catholics resisted, and with support from
Spain, forced Henry to the
 south. In 1593, Henry renounced
Protestantism and gained enough support from the Catholics to be crowned
King Henry IV of France in 1594. On April 13, 1598, Henry IV
issued the Edict of Nantes, against the desires of both the clergy and
determined Calvinists, granting substantial rights to the Huguenots, primarily being
reinstatement of their civil rights (equal citizens, could be heard in
court, hold state positions, have any profession). He granted the Protestants
one hundred locations in which they could practice their religion in
safety.
 Under
the reign of Henry's son,
Louis XIII (King of France from 1610 to 1643),
contrary to the provisions of the Edict of Nantes, efforts began to
eradicate the Reformed religion in the areas to the north of the western
Pyrenees. After long battles and a final defeat in 1628, the
Protestants were no longer a political force. They were able to
maintain status as a legally recognized denomination; however, the number
of locations where they were protected was shrinking. The
Cevennes mountain range in southern France was a strong Protestant
region, as Protestants in more northern areas either left the country
(to England, Netherlands, Germany) or moved south.
 Louis XIV
became King of France in 1643 and further intensified the harassment of the Protestants. They lost
their civic rights and were
treated as second-class citizens. In 1655, Waldensians in the
Piedmont area were ordered to quarter the troops of the Marquis de
Planeza. Early on
Easter morning, at a given signal, these troops arose and brutally
murdered and pillaged their hosts. This became known as the
Piedmont Easter massacre. In 1681, a policy known in French as "dragonnades"
was used to intimidate Huguenot families to reconvert to Roman
Catholicism. Similar to the Piedmont Easter, particularly
obnoxious and difficult soldiers known as dragons stayed with Protestant
households where they were encouraged to wreak havoc. Louis XIV
ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches and the closure of Huguenot
schools. In many cases, the harassment was sufficient to cause
Huguenots to leave the country, or convert to Catholicism.
Louis XIV had the strong desire for national unity and was under the
belief that there would have to be one religion (Catholicism). In
October 1685, Louis XIV signed the
Edict of Fontainebleau decreeing the
following:
- The Edit of Nantes shall be abolished in its
entirety.
- The Protestant temples shall be destroyed without
exception.
- The Reformed clergy who do not immediately
renounce, must leave the kingdom within two weeks under penalty of
the galleys. Children over seven years of age may not be taken
aboard, since they are of age in religious matters.
- All Reformed schools shall be dissolved, and all
Reformed religious instruction prohibited.
- The followers of the "allegedly Reformed
religion" (the religion which displeases the king) are prohibited
from assembling for services or other meetings in any location
whatsoever, or in a private residence, under penalty of seizure of
their property and themselves.
- The children born to Reformed parents are to be
baptized Catholic and sent to the Catholic churches (under penalty
of 500 livres or more). The judges of the towns are explicitly
instructed to supervise the enforcement of these decrees.
- The subjects, their wives and children, are
prohibited from emigrating, or from removing their possessions and
goods from the country under penalty of the galleys for the men and
the seizure of body and possessions for the women. Those who
already had left the country had four months to return without penalty,
if they renounced.
Even those that converted to Catholicism were treated as second-class
citizens, and called "new Catholics." As a result of the Edict of
Fontainebleau, 200,000 to 500,000 Huguenots left the
country over the next two decades. This exodus of skilled
craftsmen and hard workers was devastating on many provinces. It
would take France years to recover.
Even in the most strongly Reformed families, one member, at least, would
typically stay behind to try to preserve the family estate and
possessions. Who stayed and who left was usually decided through
mutual agreement. As stated by researcher and author Eugen Bellon,
in the introduction to his book (2):
We cannot judge, today, whether it was those French
Protestants, who undertook the perilous venture of escape from a
sunny homeland into a foggy distance for the sake of their faith and
their religious conviction, "trusting in God's good providence", who
were the faithful ones, or whether it was those who, always
threatened, kept their faith clandestinely.
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Sources (1) Malan,
Ronald F, M.A., Waldensian History: A Brief Sketch, Genealogist
and Trustee, Piedmont Families Organization,
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~waldense/history.htm
(2) Bellon, Eugen. Zerstreut in alle Winde [Scattered to all the
Winds], 1685-1720. Trans. by Erika Gautschi. (West Lafayette,
Indiana: Belle Publications, 1983). This is an English translation of
historical papers originally published by the German Huguenot Society.
Describes the Dauphine French Huguenots’ migration into Italy,
Switzerland, and Germany. 245 pages. Family History Library, microfiche,
FHL INTL Fiche
6068505, Salt Lake City.
(3) "Huguenot", Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot>. (4)
Reneau, Blake, "History of the Huguenots", <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~reneau/Reneau/huguenot_history.htm>.
(5) "Who were the Huguenots?",
Huguenot Society of South Africa, <http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/8140/hist-hug.htm>.
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