Edict of Versailles

The edict was signed by King Louis XVI on 7 November 1787, and registered in the Parlement of Paris during the Ancien Régime on 29 January 1788.

Its successful enactment was caused by persuasive arguments by prominent French philosophers and literary personalities of the day, including Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot; Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and especially the joint work of Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, minister to Louis XVI, and Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, spokesman for the Protestant community in France.

[1] King Henry IV had granted Huguenots significant amount of freedom to practice their faith when he announced the Edict of Nantes on 13 April 1598.

Under the Edict of Versailles, Roman Catholicism continued as the state religion of the Kingdom of France, but relief was offered to non-Catholic worshippers: Calvinist Huguenots, Lutherans and Jews alike.

[2] The most notable example restriction was in Metz, whose Parlement's actions explicitly excluded certain rights for Jews within its domain, such as drafting of lists of grievances, unlike in the rest of France.