Persecution of Huguenots under Louis XV

The persecution of Huguenots under Louis XV refers to hostile activities against French Protestants between 1724 and 1764 during the reign of Louis XV.

Under previous kings

The members of the Protestant religion in France, the Huguenots, had been granted the right to worship in their faith by Henry IV, and had remained unmolested during the reign of his successor, Louis XIII.
But the next king, Louis XIV, had been hostile to them, to the point where, in 1685, revoking Henry IV's edict of toleration, he forbade Protestants to worship publicly, and announced other harsh sanctions against them.

Under this duress, many Protestants converted to Catholicism; many others fled the country. Those who converted, however, usually did so only outwardly.

In truth, the number of Protestants who really became Catholics and nurtured their children in that faith was insignificant; as soon as the vigilance of the government was relaxed they neglected the service of the Catholic Church, and, when they dared, they met in their houses or in the open air for the worship of their faith.Perkins, p. 65.]

During the years 1702–1704, a serious state of rebellion existed in the region of the Cévennes mountains in South-Eastern France. The Protestants there, known as the Camisards, were ecstatic in religion and tenacious in struggle against the Catholic creed.

The penalties for preaching at, or even attending, a Protestant assembly were severe: life terms in the galleys for men, imprisonment for women — plus confiscation of all property, were normal. In all France, Protestantism continued to be suppressed until the end of the reign of Louis XIV.

Under Louis XV

The Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who followed him, was not interested in persecutions, however. The laws did not change, but their application waned, and the Protestants began again to celebrate their cult, especially in Languedoc, in Dauphiné, in Guyenne and in Poitou.Lavisse p. 84.] Nevertheless there remained those who advocated rigor in the treatment of the Protestants. Prominent among these was the Archbishop of Rouen, Louis III de La Vergne de Tressan, grand almoner to the Regent. He argued with both the Regent and his most influential minister, Cardinal Dubois, in favour of severe measures against the Protestants. They rejected his ideas.

When Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon came to be premier, however, the bishop found in him a more receptive audience, and he was given the go-ahead to draw up a general law against "l'hérésie". The law was declared by the King on 14 May 1724:

Of all the grand designs of our most honoured lord and great-grandfather, there is none that we have more at heart to carry out than that which he conceived, of entirely extinguishing heresy in his kingdom. Arrived at majority, our first care has been to have before us the edicts whereof execution has been delayed, especially in the provinces afflicted with the contagion. We have observed that the chief abuses which demand a speedy remedy relate to illicit assemblies, the education of children, the obligation of public functionaries to profess the Catholic religion, the penalties against the relapsed, and the celebration of marriage, regarding which here are our intentions: Shall be condemned: preachers to the penalty of death, their accomplices to the galleys for life, and women to be shaved and imprisoned for life. Confiscation of property: parents who shall not have baptism administered to their children within twenty-four hours, and see that they attend regularly the catechism and the schools, to fines and such sums as they may amount to together; even to greater penalties. Midwives, physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, domestics, relatives, who shall not notify the parish priests of births or illnesses, to fines. Persons who shall exhort the sick, to the galleys or imprisonment for life, according to sex; confiscation of property. The sick who shall refuse the sacraments, if they recover, to banishment for life; if they die, to be dragged on a hurdle. Desert-marriages are illegal; the children born of them are incompetent to inherit. Minors whose parents are expatriated may marry without their authority; but parents whose children are on foreign soil shall not consent to their marriage, on pain of the galleys for the men and banishment for the women. Finally, of all fines and confiscations, half shall be employed in providing subsistence for the new converts. [In Guizot, p. 54.]

The law equalled, and even surpassed in some measures, the most severe proclamations of Louis XIV. However times had changed. Louis XIV's decrees against the Protestants had been greeted, by the majority of the country, with enthusiasm; this was greeted with indifference. The clergy, on the whole, had not sought this edict; it was "the work of an ambitious man [Tressan] backed up by certain fanatics". The magistrates, too, tended not to be rigorous in their application of the edict.Guizot, p. 55.]

Discrimination was seriously carried out only where the local authorities were zealous. It mostly occurred in southern France, especially in the dioceses of Nimes and Uzès, and in Dauphiné.Lavisse, p. 86.] Protestant preacher and (or) leaders active during this period in France included Antoine CourtGuizot, pp. 52–53, 56.] Perkins, pp. 65-7.] , Paul RabautGuizot, p. 56.] , Alexander Ramsey, and Roger.Perkins, p. 73.] They often lived as nomads in wilderness areas in order to avoid capture.

Estimates are that the number of men and women imprisoned or sent to the galleys for religious offences in the 40 years following the edict of 1724 was almost two thousand.Perkins, p. 74.] According to Antione Court, in this period eight ministers were executed. This was a much lower rate of loss than had occurred during the later part of Louis XIV's reign.Perkins pp. 73–4; the source for much of his data on numbers of prisoners is Coquerel.]

Toulon was the centre where most of the men committed to the galleys for religious crimes served their sentences.Perkins, p. 74.]

Through the letters of one of its inmates, Marie Durand, and from the accounts of some other witnesses, a dreary and desolate women's prison, the Tower of Constance at Aigues Mortes, is known to us.Perkins, pp. 75-8. Concerning the Prince de Beaveau's rescue efforts, he guotes a description by the Chevalier of Boufflers in Coquerel. He cites Coquerel, "Histoire des églises du désert" in connexion with the Hugenots generally, but it is not entirely clear whether this is the work containing the Boufflers quote.]

In the decades following 1724, enthusiasm for the persecution of Protestants continued to wane; and after 1764 they "enjoyed a practical toleration for a quarter of a century before the law secured them a legal toleration."Perkins, p. 78.]

ources

*Guizot, " [http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=ABA2393.0001.001 History of France] ". Transl. from the French by Robert Black. No date, but a publisher's note is dated 1876; New York; Klemscott Society. [http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=ABA2393.0006.001 vol. 6] , p. 110ff.

*Ernest Lavisse, "Histoire de France", reprinted from the editions of 1900–1911, Paris. 1969, New York; AMS Press, Inc. Vol. VIII, part 2.

*James Breck Perkins, "France Under Louis XV", vol. i. 1897, Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co.

References