Huguenots
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.
Gallicised into Huguenot, often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and triumph, a badge of enduring honour and courage.Some disagree with such non-French linguistic origins.
[8] Paul Ristelhuber, in his 1879 introduction to a new edition of the controversial and censored, but popular[9] 1566 work Apologie pour Hérodote, by Henri Estienne,[10] mentions these theories and opinions, but tends to support a completely Catholic origin.
Now, it happens that those whom they called Lutherans were at that time so narrowly watched during the day that they were forced to wait till night to assemble, for the purpose of praying God, for preaching and receiving the Holy Sacrament; so that although they did not frighten nor hurt anybody, the priests, through mockery, made them the successors of those spirits which roam the night; and thus that name being quite common in the mouth of the populace, to designate the evangelical huguenands in the country of Tourraine and Amboyse, it became in vogue after that enterprise.
[22] After John Calvin introduced the Reformation in France, the number of French Protestants steadily swelled to ten percent of the population, or roughly 1.8 million people, in the decade between 1560 and 1570.
[20] Hans J. Hillerbrand, an expert on the subject, in his Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set claims the Huguenot community reached as much as 10% of the French population on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, declining to 7 to 8% by the end of the 16th century, and further after heavy persecution began once again with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685.
[23] He wrote in French, but unlike the Protestant development in Germany, where Lutheran writings were widely distributed and could be read by the common man, it was not the case in France, where only nobles adopted the new faith and the folk remained Catholic.
[25][26] As a final destination, most of the Huguenot émigrés moved to Protestant states such as the Dutch Republic, England and Wales (prominently in Kent and London), Protestant-controlled Ireland, the Channel Islands, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the electorates of Brandenburg and the Palatinate in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Duchy of Prussia.
As the Huguenots gained influence and displayed their faith more openly, Roman Catholic hostility towards them grew, even though the French crown offered increasingly liberal political concessions and edicts of toleration.
During the eighteen months of the reign of Francis II, Mary encouraged a policy of rounding up French Huguenots on charges of heresy and putting them in front of Catholic judges, and employing torture and burning as punishments for dissenters.
With each break in peace, the Huguenots' trust in the Catholic throne diminished, and the violence became more severe, and Protestant demands became grander, until a lasting cessation of open hostility finally occurred in 1598.
The wars gradually took on a dynastic character, developing into an extended feud between the Houses of Bourbon and Guise, both of which—in addition to holding rival religious views—staked a claim to the French throne.
The Edict reaffirmed Roman Catholicism as the state religion of France, but granted the Protestants equality with Catholics under the throne and a degree of religious and political freedom within their domains.
A series of three small civil wars known as the Huguenot rebellions broke out, mainly in southwestern France, between 1621 and 1629 in which the Reformed areas revolted against royal authority.
It precipitated civil bloodshed, ruined commerce, and resulted in the illegal flight from the country of hundreds of thousands of Protestants, many of whom were intellectuals, doctors and business leaders whose skills were transferred to Britain as well as Holland, Switzerland, Prussia, South Africa and other places they fled to.
"[67] Foreign descendants of Huguenots lost the automatic right to French citizenship in 1945 (by force of the Ordonnance n° 45-2441 du 19 octobre 1945, which revoked the 1889 Nationality Law).
André Trocmé preached against discrimination as the Nazis were gaining power in neighbouring Germany and urged his Protestant Huguenot congregation to hide Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.
[citation needed] Surveys suggest that Protestantism has grown in recent years, though this is due primarily to the expansion of evangelical Protestant churches which particularly have adherents among immigrant groups that are generally considered distinct from the French Huguenot population.
In 1562, naval officer Jean Ribault led an expedition that explored Florida and the present-day Southeastern US, and founded the outpost of Charlesfort on Parris Island, South Carolina.
[88] Upon their arrival in New Amsterdam, Huguenots were offered land directly across from Manhattan on Long Island for a permanent settlement and chose the harbour at the end of Newtown Creek, becoming the first Europeans to live in Brooklyn, then known as Boschwick, in the neighbourhood now known as Bushwick.
It is said that they landed on the coastline peninsula of Davenports Neck called "Bauffet's Point" after travelling from England where they had previously taken refuge on account of religious persecution, four years before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Previous to the erection of it, the strong men would often walk twenty-three miles on Saturday evening, the distance by the road from New Rochelle to New York, to attend the Sunday service.
[89] When they arrived, colonial authorities offered them instead land 20 miles above the falls of the James River, at the abandoned Monacan village known as Manakin Town, now in Goochland County.
Assimilated, the French made numerous contributions to United States economic life, especially as merchants and artisans in the late Colonial and early Federal periods.
Other descendants of Huguenots included Jack Jouett, who made the ride from Cuckoo Tavern to warn Thomas Jefferson and others that Tarleton and his men were on their way to arrest him for crimes against the king; Reverend John Gano, a Revolutionary War chaplain and spiritual advisor to George Washington; Francis Marion; and a number of other leaders of the American Revolution and later statesmen.
Early ties were already visible in the Apologie of William the Silent, condemning the Spanish Inquisition, which was written by his court minister, the Huguenot Pierre L'Oyseleur, lord of Villiers.
Consequently, many Huguenots considered the wealthy and Calvinist-controlled Dutch Republic, which also happened to lead the opposition to Louis XIV, as the most attractive country for exile after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
[121] Many Huguenots from the Lorraine region also eventually settled in the area around Stourbridge in the modern-day West Midlands, where they found the raw materials and fuel to continue their glassmaking tradition.
Prince Louis de Condé, along with his sons Daniel and Osias,[citation needed] arranged with Count Ludwig von Nassau-Saarbrücken to establish a Huguenot community in present-day Saarland in 1604.
In October 1985, to commemorate the tricentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, President François Mitterrand of France announced a formal apology to the descendants of Huguenots around the world.
