The Wars of Religion and the Edict of Nantes
Catholics and Protestant Huguenots fight eight civil wars, including the St Bartholomew's Day massacre, until Henri IV grants limited toleration in 1598.
- The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 — Mack P. Holt, Cambridge University Press (1995)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of France — Colin Jones, Cambridge University Press (1994)
By the 1550s perhaps a tenth of the French population had embraced Calvinism; its followers were called Huguenots. Between 1562 and 1598 France was torn by eight civil wars, mixing faith with the ambitions of great noble families. The worst moment came on 24 August 1572, St Bartholomew’s Day, when Huguenot leaders gathered in Paris for a royal wedding were murdered and Parisian crowds turned on Protestants. The killing spread to other towns. Historians generally estimate around 2,000 to 3,000 dead in Paris and several thousand more in the provinces, though some put the total far higher.
- The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 — Mack P. Holt, Cambridge University Press (1995)
Peace came under Henri IV, a Protestant who converted to Catholicism to take the throne (he is supposed to have said “Paris is well worth a Mass”, though the line is probably apocryphal). His Edict of Nantes of 1598 gave Huguenots freedom of conscience, limited rights to worship and fortified towns.
- The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 — Mack P. Holt, Cambridge University Press (1995)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of France — Colin Jones, Cambridge University Press (1994)
Toleration did not last. Louis XIV revoked the edict in 1685. Roughly 200,000 Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Prussia, Switzerland and South Africa, while those who stayed worshipped in secret until toleration returned in 1787.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of France — Colin Jones, Cambridge University Press (1994)
- The Fabrication of Louis XIV — Peter Burke, Yale University Press (1992)
Why it matters today
Many French people trace their deep suspicion of religion in politics, and the later invention of laïcité, back to these wars. The memory of the St Bartholomew's Day massacre and of the persecuted Huguenots is one reason the state insists on staying above all faiths, and France's small Protestant minority, especially in the Cévennes and Alsace, still remembers the "Desert" years of clandestine worship.