Edict of Fontainebleau

The October 18th 1685, the Edict of Fontainebleau , signed by Louis XIV, revokes the Édit of Nantes. At the beginning of his reign, Louis XIV thus seeks to reduce Protestantism. He takes initially vexatious measures: he makes remove Protestant schools, prohibited with the Protestants to buy offices, increases their taxes…

First steps of the Revocation

Ale peace to the personal reign of Louis XIV

After the Paix of Ales of 1629, which reduced considerably the privileges acquired at the time of the Édit of Nantes and especially its clauses military, the “Reformed Alleged Religion” (such was the denomination used by the catholics of the time) lived during about thirty years without too many jolts, if it is not the discrete loss of its privileges, but a constant legal fight made it possible not to lose too many advantages. Richelieu made rather well respect the Edict of Nantes for reasons of foreign policy: because of its alliance with the German Protestant princes and the Swedish crown in the War Thirty Year old, it was to spare the Huguenot S of France. The death of the Cardinal in 1642, then that of Louis XIII in 1643, opened dubious days for reformed. The Richelieu years were those of the safety and the absence of unforeseen, those of the ministry Mazarin much less.

Ernest Labrousse watch that the revolution of England, in 1649, where Charles I {{er}} was decapitated by the puritan Parliament, could complicate the situation of the Huguenot S French, obliged to defend oneself vis-a-vis association of ideas between the regicide and the Protestantisme. They condemned their brothers presbytériens sharply and showed their attachment with the Monarchie. However, always for reasons of foreign policy, Mazarin was favorable to the French huguenots; it was necessary to like Cromwell to make sure of its neutrality in the war which France carried out against Spain. In May 1652, a royal declaration thanks reformed for their support for the Crown during the Fronde. But after having obtained the commercial and military alliance of the English in 1655 and 1657, the Cardinal was shown more intransigent, reconsidering measurements conceded before. Its goal was to reduce the R.P.R. gradually. Decisions are made: the national synod of the joined together E.R.F. with Loudun in 1659 would be the last license by the capacity - the national synods essential for were reformed since they are more the high authorities as regards Droit and of Théologie. Prohibited Mazarin to call upon foreign pastors, in particular of Geneva, “Rome” reformed. Another serious blow carried against the Religionnaire S: charged commissions by the Cardinal to make respect the Édit of Nantes “to the letter” i.e. all that is not contained in the Edict is interdict with the Protestants. The commissions were composed hitherto of two lawyers: a Catholic , often the intendant of the general information or his subdelegated, and a Protestant. With the application to the rigor, the consistories were to juridically prove and written at the commissions their rights on operation of the Temple S in their city. For D. Boisson, it is a turning of the royal policy: the wave of the constraining legislative texts with regard to the Protestants accelerates but a real rise only in the decade 1660 finds. There were several other measurements which thus violated the privileges of the Edict of Nantes. Whereas reformed made confidence in the future, at the Court and the justice of the king, more the high ranking authorities of the State played a double game: to like the Protestant allies of France by a policy favorable towards the French huguenots, while reducing their privileges for better controlling them. Contrary to the business of the Béarn, there were no risings. For better serving their ambitions and liking the noble Protestants the king had converted with the Catholicisme since 1630, the Paix of Ales had deprived Huguenots of any fortified town and troops. How not to be astonished whereas Protestant historians as E.G. Léonard qualified the period between the Ale peace and the Revocation of “lethargy” where the Protestants showed more anxious to defend their privileges and to express their royalism to defend their faith and to make work of conversion.

The work of dismantling of the Edict of Nantes by the State (1661-1685)

The Édit of Nantes ambitionnait with its political aims to make use of the party protesting like during naturalness with the Ligue. However, the progressive weakening then disappearance of the party Huguenot, the transformation of the League into a more religious devout party and less politician deprived the Protestant community of a certain “utility” Politique. To weaken the R.P.R. by the reduction of the Edict of Nantes, to reaffirm the place of the Catholicism as official Religion then seemed justified for the Église and the excessively pious people of the Court. Like shows it E. Labrousse, the minority huguenote since the disappearance of the Party Protesting did not represent more one real danger to the State.
Minoritaires, inoffensive but good subjects, honest and dynamic on the economic plan, the fate of the religionnaires was not any more between the hands of the consistories but between those of the royal capacity. To tolerate the presence of a religious minority, heretic was to some extent to scorn the huguenots, to reduce them to their insignificance. Louis XIV since the Sling did not like the factious one and the minority one, the huguenots constituted a spot on the royal majesty. All the work of kings de France since François Ier aimed at establishing a very powerful and undeniable authority, to ensure the good being under “a faith, a law, a king”. The single one was a rule, that which disputed this unanimity, this unit, was consequently regarded as a dissident, a rebel. It was the case of the E.R.F., being out of the unit by their confession, they went against the absolutist principles louis-quatorzien, it was thus necessary to put at the step these religionnaires. To restore Catholicism appeared the only possible way.

In 1656, as we saw previously, Mazarin imposed the application to the letter of the Edict of Nantes, it is really applied only in 1661. One counts between 1661 and 1679, twelve restrictive edicts of the council of the king. In 1665, a stop allots to the catholic police chief the control of the instruction of the files. Certain temples were demolished, often because of the place where they were built. Several royal declarations and stops between 1661 and 1669 accentuated the oppressive policy against the huguenots, the majority of the declarations related to the sermon of the pastors with prohibitions to preach elsewhere than in temples, and cities deprived of temples. The stops insisted on the psalms, prohibited to be sung apart from the temples. Other stops regulated funerals of the religionnaires: in 1663 one authorized the funeral only at daybreak or at fallen the night, the number of participants was fixed at thirty, then to ten in 1664, then this “numerus clausus” is raised in 1669. The declaration of February 1st, 1669 cancels or moderates several preceding texts, making a “pause” in the legislation anti-Protestant woman and a respite for reformed. Other measurements touched the institutions in themselves: the behavior of the conferences, was prohibited, the provincial synods were to deliberate with a royal police chief, in 1663 it is prohibited that the churches of different provinces communicate by epistolary contacts. Lastly, between the edicts, stops and royal declarations anti-Protestant women several related to the same religionnaires them: prohibition to postulate with high loads, prohibition to exert a list of trades. This interminable continuation of legal texts is not exhaustive, we chose them as examples for showing well that this decade 1660 is the first wave of anti-huguenots texts.

The reaction of the Protestants was initially legal: the lawsuits multiplied to answer the attacks carried against the E.R.F. and seldom their cause was victorious. But vis-a-vis a situation which could have reinvigorated them, the pastors engoncèrent themselves in an orthodoxy and a theological Rigorisme which inserted even more the community in the passivity and the fear of sanctions even more serious.
It is once more the international situation which gave to the Protestants a deferment in France. In spring 1672, the armies of the king invaded the United Provinces. The Treated of Nimègue, six years later mark the end of the War of Holland, the apogee of the French power in Europe and is worth in Louis XIV on his return to Paris the title of “Large”. In 1675, whereas part of Europe and France were plunged in the war, individual abjurations huguenotes were done more, with the support of the Court, primarily of the notable ones, but one counted also merchants, craftsmen, concerned to attract each other the favors. 1675, it is also the year of the creation of the Case of conversions by Paul Pellisson financed by the case of the Stewardships, which perceived the incomes of the vacant abbeys before. The idea was simple: money in exchange of a conversion was given, but the idea was not new. Since 1598, the Parliament of the clergy of France had allotted for the conversion of huguenots a certain amount of money for the ministers who would convert with Catholicism. The Case of Pellisson allured especially common peoples not touching many incomes, but also swindlers, people can scrupulous supporting the abuses: people converted several times. The results are not very satisfactory, hardly ten thousand conversions over three years on the whole of the kingdom and the quality of conversions was not very convincing. The polemists huguenots, did not hesitate to condemn the little of scruples of the Catholic church, with a process recalling that of the Indulgence S to the beginning of the XVIe century to repurchase sins against money intended for the construction of Saint-Pierre of Rome.

In 1679, begins the second wave from texts anti-Protestants. The case of conversions obtained limited results. Subjected to the “good desire of the king”, France, with the apogee of its power in Europe had still not regulated the fate of the religionnaires of the kingdom. Weakened, the E.R.F. always posted their fidelity with monarchy, but their resistance and the remaining vestiges of the Edict of Nantes are destroyed in the years 1679-1685 by the stops of the Council. One counted more than four twenty stops during this time! In October 1679, the reformed synods had to accept a royal police chief named by the court. In Lyon, it is Jean-Baptiste Dulieu, lieutenant in the Sénéchaussée and starting from March 18th, 1685 sits présidial of Lyon which attends the meetings of the consistory of Lyon. Another stop accentuates the sorrows against the Protestant relaps. In 1680, a new edict excludes from certain professions the Protestants, and one prohibits to the catholics to convert with the Protestantisme. Other measures are taken, on June 17th 1681, the age of conversion to Catholicism passes to 7 years, in July 1681 a stop removes the academy of Sedan, follow those of Die in September 1684, Saumur in January 1685, PuyLaurens in March 1685.
An ordinance is at the origin of the Dragonnades: that of April 11th, 1681. It allows:

“The exemption of housing of people of war and contribution the iceux one during two years in favor of those which, being of RPR converted and made catholic since January 1st and which will convert hereafter”

The dragonnades are implemented as from the month of May 1681. Initially in the Poitou, by the Marillac intendant. The dragonnade is a brutal means of persuasion for the populations. These soldiers of the king place at the inhabitant, protesting in fact, and try by all the means of making it abjure because “the king the veult”. The average employees are proportional to the resistance of the inhabitant: of a simple show of force until plundering, with the rape and the murder. When a village converted, the soldiers passed to another. This first dragonnade was most spectacular and most effective for the courtiers. Reformed the poitevins converted massively and the temples still upright closed. Conversions obtained are it more by fear than by real adhesion with the catholic faith, but the results are there: conversions are massive, and the first fugitive ones try to flee by the ports of the Atlantique. In the Protestant countries, the emotion caused by first fugitive the reformed French ones is large. The Protestant princes of Europe proposed their assistance with the French huguenots: they accommodate them and facilitate their installation. The voter of the Brandebourg exonerates them fiscal charges on his grounds. After a three years pause the dragonnades begin again in 1685. One second large dragonnade takes place in South-west as from May 1685. On the basis of the Béarn, it moves towards the Languedoc and the valley of the the Rhone to the East, and towards the Saintonge in North. The legislation reinforced the impact of the dragonnades. In August 1684, the goods of the consistories are transferred to the hospitals, in September 1684, a stop prohibited with reformed to help the poor religionnaires and patients because the hospitals were held by religious orders. In December 1684, the exercise of the worship is prohibited where there is less than 10 Protestant families and in May 1685, they are the galères which the reformed fugitive ones incur if they are stopped. In the months of October 1685, reformed converted, the destroyed reformed Church, “the heresy” are extirpated, it does not remain more with the king but to revoke the Édit of Nantes, symbol useless of a completed time.

The Revocation: policy issues, religious stakes

This revocation was maturely reflected, the council of the king discussed the revocation all the same. Louvois Secretary of State to the war, Tellier chancellor, the Furrier general inspector of Finances, were favorable to the religious reunification of the kingdom. The Large Dolphin, preferred to him a slow death and without noise. The party of the revocation carried it to the point.

The 17, Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes. He is recorded by the Parlement of Paris on October 22nd. Several reasons push Louis XIV to revoke the edict of Nantes: the foreign policy, the tensions with papacy, one can also think of the personal pride of king de France, who obliged it never to conceal himself in front of his duty and his decisions. Outside, the pope and Christendom had seen of a very evil eye the absence of France in Austria at the time of the Turkish opening in Central Europe in 1683. The seat of Vienna and the Bataille of Vienna to Kahlenberg in 1683, where the imperial troops and its allies overcame the army of the viziers Köprülü, glorifiait the emperor Léopold Ier and the king of Poland Jean III Sobieski. France had badly calculated the consequences of its non-participation to the defense of the catholic grounds of the East. Louis XIV always had traded with the Othomans, and had tried to retain the appetite of the Emperor in the East. All in all, the austro-Turkish war arranged the businesses of Louis XIV in Flandres and the Brabant. Perhaps, the Revocation would fill it this French absence by showing its catholicity with the catholic princes.
The causes of conflict with the pope multiplied in the first years of the decade 1680. The business of the Régale obstructed the royal administration considerably Indeed, the Concordat of Bologna in 1516 had been appropriate that the king was Master of the temporal goods of évêchés. During the holidays of those, it could touch their benefit. However, the legal settlement did not touch évêchés not annexed since 1516. In 1673, Louis XIV decided to settle the question by extending the Legal settlement to these Diocèse S with the approval of the high clergy of the kingdom, two bishops only called some with the pope. In October 1681, an assembly of the clergy reacts against the interference of the pope Innocent XI in the French businesses, a “Déclaration of the four articles of 1682” made public on March 19th 1682 then proclaimed the independence of the king on the pope and the primacy of the council, the Saint Father was to respect the habits and laws of the Church of France. These articles are a genuine proclamation for the church gallicane, asserting an autonomy with respect to Rome. The papal sanctions were immediate: Innocent XI then refused to invest the bishops named by the king. The king however had to yield: the bishops were relays of the central capacity, consequently the absence of bishops in the dioceses caused a rupture in the hierarchy and the transmission of the orders. The business was regulated ten years after in 1692: the successor from Innocent XI, Innocent XII alleviated the tensions with the king of France, the participants of the assembly of the clergy of 1682 publicly regret their publication, Louis XIV orders not to teach the declaration of the Four Articles more. Lastly, the success of the dragonnades showed the ineluctability of conversion of reformed with Catholicism. The revocation was essential to try a bringing together with the pope, to give again prestige of monarchy and to answer the success of the dragonnades.

The Edict of Fontainebleau: its contents

In the preamble to the edict of revocation, the edict of Nantes is described as follows: “King Henry the Large one, our grandfather of glorious memory, wanting to prevent which peace that it had gotten on its subjects, after the great losses which they had suffered by the duration from the civil wars and foreign, was not disturbed at the time of the Reformed Alleged Religion, as it had arrived under the reigns of the Kings his predecessors, would have by his edict given to Nantes in the month of April 1598, regulated the action to be taken with regard to those of the aforesaid the religion, the places in which they could about it make the exercise, bench of the extraordinary judges to manage justice to them, and finally provided even by articles particular to all that it would have considered it necessary to maintain peace in its kingdom, and to decrease the aversion between those which were one and the other religion, in order to be more in a position to work as it had solved to make join together with the Church those which of it were so easily distant”.

the edict of Nantes is presented like a political compromise of peace to leaving the wars of religion. According to the text, the goal of Henri IV consisted in restoring the religious unit of the kingdom, and this policy did not change since 1598. Only, the King was prevented by it by his death in 1610. Then, the interior or external conflicts successive did not make it possible its successors to revoke the Edict. The text explains why now, with the peace installed in massive France and conversions having been obtained in the last years, the king can and must from now on revoke the Edict for the peace of the kingdom.
Several important articles are to be announced: - article 1 revokes the Edict of Nantes, and the modifications made to the text to make it accept by the Parliaments; it orders the destruction of all the temples. - Article 3 interdict the exercise of the reformed worship and schools for Protestant children. them articles 4 and 5 give to the choice to the “ministers” i.e. the pastors between conversion and the exile. - Article 10: it prohibits to the Protestants not-converted to leave the kingdom under penalty of galères for the men, of prison with confiscation of body and goods for the women, but that the emigrated Protestants are authorized to return in the Kingdom and will be able to find the possession of their goods. - Article 12 finishes the royal edict in an ambiguous way: “Will be able with the aforementioned surpluses of RPR, while waiting for that likes it God to light them like the others, to remain in the cities and places of our kingdom, country and grounds of our obedience, to continue their trade and to enjoy their goods without being able there to be disturbed neither prevented under pretext of the aforesaid the R.P.R. in condition, as it is said, not to make exercises nor be assembled under pretext of prayers or worship of the aforesaid the religion of some nature that it is, under the sorrows (...) of confiscation of body and goods. ”

This article leaves many circumspect or critical historians. One would authorize the Protestants to remain in the kingdom with the proviso of not being assembled to exert their worship. This article slices radically with the restrictive measures described in the preceding articles and their installation by the capacity since the beginning of the Années 1680. According to E. Labrousse this clause which it describes as “deception” would be a means of moderating the reactions made indignant of the Protestant nations like the Elector Palatine or the prince voter of Brandebourg on the Revocation. According to B. Hours, it would be necessary to bring this article closer to the Four Articles of 1682, the King would thus mark division between the temporal power asserted to legislate on the exercise of the worship, and the spiritual power which belongs to the Church, to mark the spirits of the catholic faith durably. The edict of revocation had however only partially the effects discounted on the international plan. Innocent XI mollement congratulated the King by a brief the November 16th 1685, a Te Deum was given by the pope the April 30th 1686, which shows that the tensions between the Saint Sits and Versailles always remained. The Court hoped that the pope would let the king exert his right of levels in his kingdom, but an apostolic brief had answered that the reward of the king was more on the side of divine kindness than of that of the Saint Sits. The catholic princes sent the congratulations of use but did not change their policy with regard to France, the French Protestant allies were obstructed and the other Protestant States thought of attacking France, especially the stathouder of the United Provinces, William of Orange. They are obviously the French catholics, and not only the excessively pious people who approved the decision of the monarch. A chorus of praises glorifia Louis XIV with the image of M {{me}} of Sévigné: “Never no king made and will not do anything more memorable”. Bossuet, celebrated to him Louis XIV like the “New Constantin”, the restorer of the religious unit of the Kingdom.

See too

Political anti-Protestant woman of Louis XIV

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