The
Edict of Fontainebleau (October 1685) was an
edictAn edict is an announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism. The Pope and various micronational leaders are currently the only persons who still issue edicts.-Notable edicts:...
issued by
Louis XIVLouis XIV , popularly known as the Sun King , was King of France and of Navarre His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch.Louis began personally governing France after the death...
of
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, also known as the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1598, which had granted to the
HuguenotThe Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Since the eighteenth century, Huguenots have been commonly designated "French Protestants", the title being suggested by their German co-religionists or "Calvinists"...
s the right to practice their religion without persecution from the state. Though Protestants had lost their independence in places of refuge under Richelieu, they continued to live in comparative security and political contentment. From the outset,
religious tolerationReligious toleration is the condition of accepting or permitting others' religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own.In a country with a state religion, toleration means that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not...
in France had been a royal, rather than a popular policy. The lack of universal adherence to his religion did not sit well with Louis XIV's vision of perfected
autocracyA autocracy is a form of government in which the political power is held by a self-appointed ruler. The term autocrat is derived from the word autokratōr...
: "Bending all else to his will, Louis XIV resented the presence of
hereticA heretic is a person who committed heresy.Heretic m*Heretic , a 1994 game by Raven Software*Heretic II, a 1998 sequel to the aforementioned gameIn literature:* Heretic, an autobiography of Peter Cameron...
s among his subjects."
Effects of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
By this edict, the "Sun King" revoked the
Edict of NantesThe Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598. by Henry IV of France to grant the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic...
and ordered the destruction of
HuguenotThe Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Since the eighteenth century, Huguenots have been commonly designated "French Protestants", the title being suggested by their German co-religionists or "Calvinists"...
churchesFrance is a country where freedom of thought and of religion are preserved, in virtue of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The Republic is based on the principle of laïcité enforced by the 1880s Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches...
, as well as the closing of Protestant
schoolThe French educational system is highly centralized, organized, and ramified. It is divided into three different stages:* primary education ;* secondary education ;...
s. This policy officialized the persecution already enforced since the
dragonnadeA policy, commonly called in French "dragonnades", was instituted by Louis XIV in 1681 in order to intimidate Huguenot families into either leaving France or reconverting to Roman Catholicism....
s created in 1681 by the king in order to intimidate Huguenots into
convertingReligious conversion is the adoption of new religious beliefs that differ from the convert's previous beliefs. It involves a new religious identity, or a change from one religious identity to another. Conversion requires internalization of the new belief system...
to Catholicism. As a result of the persecution by the
dragoonDragoons were originally infantrymen deployed by horse, but later became cavalry. They were therefore trained in horse riding as well as infantry fighting skills. Dragoon regiments were established in most European armies during the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
s billetA billet is a term for living quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, it referred to a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier....
ed upon prominent Huguenots and the subsequent Edict of Fontainebleau, a large number of Protestants — estimates range from 210,000 to 900,000 — left France over the next two decades, seeking
asylumUnder the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the
United ProvincesThe Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was a European republic between 1581 and 1795, in about the same location as the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands,...
,
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, the
HabsburgThe House of Habsburg or Hapsburg was an important royal house of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empire and several other countries...
's
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
,
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
and
North AmericaThe start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492, although there was at least one earlier colonization effort...
. On January 17 1686, Louis XIV himself claimed that out of a Huguenot population of 800,000 to 900,000, only 1,000 to 1,500 had remained in France.
Louis XIV's pious second wife
Madame de MaintenonFrançoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon was the morganatic second wife of King Louis XIV of France. She was known after her first marriage as Madame Scarron, and subsequently as Madame de Maintenon. Her marriage to the king was never officially announced or admitted.-Origins:Françoise...
was a strong advocate of Protestant persecution and urged Louis to revoke Henri IV's edict; her confessor and spiritual adviser,
François de la ChaiseFrançois de la Chaise was a French Jesuit priest, the father confessor of King Louis XIV of France-Biography:...
, must be held largely responsible.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes created a state of affairs in France similar to that of virtually every other European country of the period (possibly with the exception of the
Polish-Lithuanian CommonwealthThe Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed by the union of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569. The new Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe....
), where only the majority state religion was tolerated. The experiment of religious toleration in Europe was effectively ended for the time being. In practice, the revocation caused France to suffer a kind of early
brain drainBrain drain or human capital flight is a large emigration of individuals with technical skills or knowledge, normally due to conflict, lack of opportunity, political instability, or health risks. Brain drain is usually regarded as an economic cost, since emigrants usually take with them the...
, as it lost a large number of
skillA skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills...
ed craftsmen, including key designers such as
Daniel MarotDaniel Marot was a French Protestant, an architect, furniture designer and engraver at the forefront of the classicizing Late Baroque "Louis XIV" style....
. Upon leaving France, Huguenots took with them knowledge of important techniques and styles — which had a significant effect on the quality of the
silkAccording to Chinese tradition, the history of silk begins in the 27th century BCE. Its use was confined to China until the Silk Road opened at some point during the latter half of the first millennium BC. China maintained its virtual monopoly over silk for another thousand years...
, plate glass, silversmithing (see: Huguenot silver), and
cabinet makingCabinet making is the practice of using various woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture.Cabinet making involves techniques such as creating appropriate joints, dados, bevels, chamfers and shelving systems, the use of finishing tools such as routers to create decorative...
industriesAn industry is the manufacturing of a good or service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw...
of those regions to which they relocated. Some rulers, such as Frederick Wilhelm of
BrandenburgBrandenburg-Prussia was a German monarchy established by the personal union between the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1618.The monarchy was ruled by the branch of the Hohenzollern dynasty that had earlier ruled Brandenburg...
, who issued the
Edict of PotsdamThe Edict of Potsdam was a proclamation issued by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, in Potsdam on October 29, 1685, as a response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau.- Background :...
, encouraged the Protestants to seek refuge in their nations.
The Edict of Fontainebleau is compared by many historians with the 1492
Alhambra DecreeThe Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on December 16, 1968.- Background :Beginning...
, ordering the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The two are similar both as an outburst of extreme religious intolerance where there was relative tolerance before, and because the social and economic effects of the Alhambra Decree in Spain were similar to the above-mentioned effects in France
In practice, the stringency of policies outlawing Protestants, opposed by the Jansenists, was relaxed with time, especially among discreet members of the upper classes. "The fact that a hundred years later, when Protestants were again tolerated, many of them were found to be both commercially prosperous and politically loyal indicates that they fared far better than the Catholic Irish", R.R. Palmer concluded. The judicial murder of
Jean CalasJean Calas was a merchant living in Toulouse, France, famous for having been the victim of a biased trial due to his being a Protestant. In France, he is a symbol of Christian religious intolerance, along with Jean-François de la Barre and Pierre-Paul Sirven.Calas, along with his wife, was a...
in 1762, however, inspired
VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosopher known for his wit and his defense of civil liberties, including both freedom of religion and free trade.Voltaire was a prolific writer and produced works in almost every...
's
A Treatise on Toleration (1763), which received European-wide circulation and discredited such persecution in public opinion, making possible the royal career of the Swiss Protestant
Jacques NeckerJacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland...
at the close of the
Ancien RégimeAncien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social, and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties...
.
See also
- 1702 Camisard
Camisards were French Protestants of the rugged and isolated Cevennes region of south-central France, who raised an insurrection against the persecutions which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685...
rebellion in the CevennesThe Cévennes are a range of mountains in south-central France, covering parts of the départements of Gard, Lozère, Ardèche, and Haute-Loire.The word Cévennes comes from the Gaulish Cebenna, which was Latinized by Julius Caesar to Cevenna...
- French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants...
- Religions in France
- Edict of Potsdam
The Edict of Potsdam was a proclamation issued by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, in Potsdam on October 29, 1685, as a response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau.- Background :...
- 1731 Expulsion of Protestants from Salzburg
- Edict of Expulsion
In 1290, King Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England. Lasting for the rest of the Middle Ages, it would be over 350 years until it was formally overturned in 1656...
- Alhambra Decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on December 16, 1968.- Background :Beginning...
- Expulsion of the Moriscos
On April 9, 1609, King Philip III of Spain decreed the expulsion of the Moriscos. The Moriscos were the descendants of the Muslim population that converted to Christianity under threat of exile from Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502. From 1609 through 1614, the Spanish government systematically...
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