Concept

Huguenots

Overview

The Huguenots ( HEW-gə-nots, UK also -⁠nohz; French: [yɡ(ə)no]) are a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of burgomaster Besançon Hugues, who ironically defended Geneva from Catholic Savoy but then let it fall to Protestantism, was in common use by around 1550. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.

In his Encyclopedia of Protestantism, Hans Hillerbrand wrote that on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, the Huguenot community made up as much as 10% of the French population. By 1600, it declined to 7–8%, and was reduced further late in the century after the return of persecution under Louis XIV, who instituted the Dragonnades to forcibly convert Protestants, and then finally revoked all Protestant rights in his Edict of Fontainebleau of 1685. In 1686, Protestants comprised just 1% of the population.

The Huguenots were concentrated in the southern and western parts of the Kingdom of France. As Huguenots gained influence and more openly displayed their faith, Catholic hostility grew. A series of religious conflicts followed, known as the French Wars of Religion, fought intermittently from 1562 to 1598. The Huguenots were led by Jeanne d'Albret; her son, the future Henry IV (who would later convert to Catholicism in order to become king); and the princes of Condé. The wars ended with the Edict of Nantes of 1598, which granted the Huguenots substantial religious, political and military autonomy.

Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s resulted in the abolition of their political and military privileges. They retained the religious provisions of the Edict of Nantes until the rule of Louis XIV, who gradually increased persecution of Protestantism until he issued the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685). This ended legal recognition of Protestantism in France and the Huguenots were forced to either convert to Catholicism (possibly as Nicodemites) or flee as refugees; they were subject to violent Dragonnades. Louis XIV claimed the French Huguenot population was reduced from about 900,000 or 800,000 adherents to just 1,000 or 1,500. He exaggerated the decline, but the Dragonnades were devastating for the French Protestant community. The exodus of Huguenots from France created a brain drain, as many of them had occupied important places in society.

The remaining Huguenots faced continued persecution under Louis XV. By the time of his death in 1774, Calvinism had been all but eliminated from France. Persecution of Protestants officially ended with the Edict of Versailles, signed by Louis XVI in 1787. Two years later, with the Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, Protestants gained equal rights as citizens. The Reformed Church of France represented the main continuation of the Huguenot tradition in modern France. In 2013, it merged with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in France to form the United Protestant Church of France, which today represents the largest Protestant denomination in France and includes both Reformed (Calvinist) and Lutheran traditions descended in part from the Huguenots.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Some of the magistrates belonged to the confraternity of white penitents. From that moment the death of Jean Calas seemed inevitable. What contributed most to his fate was the approach of that singular festival which the people of Toulouse hold every year in memory of the massacre of four thousand Huguenots. The year 1762 was the bicentenary of the event. The city was decorated with all the trappings of the…
Voltaire, Toleration and other essays
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Yves in marriage; of having, at least, a company of cavalry; and of setting aside the persecution against the Huguenots. He was rocking himself asleep with these flattering ideas, when the _Marechaussée_ entered his chamber, and seized upon his double-charged fusee and his great sabre. They took an inventory of his ready money, and then conducted him to the castle erected by King Charles V., son to John II., near…
Voltaire, Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume
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There certainly was nothing in this work which could tempt me to answer it; but having an opportunity of saying a few words upon it in my 'Letters from the Mountain', I inserted in them a short note sufficiently expressive of disdain to render Vernes furious. He filled Geneva with his furious exclamations, and D'Ivernois wrote me word he had quite lost his senses. Sometime afterwards appeared an anonymous sheet…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete
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Huguenots

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