Huguenots

Huguenots (from the Genevese nickname ciguenot, Ger. eidgenosse), the name formerly given in France to the adherents of the Reformation, which movement commenced almost simultaneously in France and Germany. One of the most eminent names in the early history of French Protestantism is that of Farel (q.v.), and one of the first supporters of its cause was Margaret of Valois, queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis I. Subsequently, in the time of Calvin, many of the nobles and middle classes embraced the reformed religion. Francis I., however, opposed it with great severity, and caused many to be burned as heretics. The alliance of Henry II. with the German Protestants gave at first an impulse to the cause of the Reformation, but the aspect of things was again changed when the family of Guise obtained ascendancy at court. Under Francis II. a chamber (chambre ardente) was established in each parliament for the punishment of Protestants; and executions, con- fiscations, and banishments were common in all parts of the kingdom. The Protestants took up arms against the government, choosing Louis I., Prince of Bourbon-Condé, for their leader. On February 1, 1560, in a meeting at Nantes, they resolved to petition the king for freedom of religion and for the removal of the Guises; and in the event of his refusal, to seize the king's person, and proclaim Condé governor-general of the kingdom. But the court, being apprised of the conspiracy, fled from Blois to Amboise, and the Duke of Guise was appointed governor-general. Some bands of Protestants, approaching Amboise with weapons in their hands, were easily defeated and taken; 1200 died by the hand of the executioner. The Edict of Romorantin, in May 1560, took the prosecution of heretics out of the hands of the parliament, and gave it into those of the bishops. Whilst the Guises plotted the death of the Protestant leaders Charles IX. ascended the throne, a prince not yet of age; and the queen-mother, Catharine de' Medici (q.v.), having removed the Guises from the helm of the state, was compelled to seek the support of the Protestants against them and their party. In July 1561 appeared an edict which freed the Huguenots from the penalty of death. For the complete termination of strife the court opened a religious conference at Poissy. The chief disputants were the Cardinal of Lorraine on the one side, and Theodore Beza (q.v.) on the other. The effect of the discussion was to unite and embolden the Protestants, with whom the machinations of the Guises forced Catharine into closer alliance. In 1562 appeared an edict giving noblemen the right of the free exercise of their religion on their own estates.

In March of the same year, a company of Protestants met in a barn at Vassy for religious exercises was attacked, and many of them were massacred by the followers of the Duke of Guise. On this Condé hastened to Orleans, and called his co-religionists again to his standard; whilst the Guises took possession of the persons of the king and his mother, and proclaimed the Protestants rebels. In September the royal troops took Rouen, and in December a battle was fought at Dreux, in which, after a hard struggle, the Protestants were defeated. The Duke of Guise marched on Orleans, but was assassinated in his camp before that city, February 18, 1563. Hereupon the queen-mother hastened to conclude the peace of Amboise, by which the Protestants were allowed the free exercise of their religion, except in certain districts and towns. Catharine, however, formed a close alliance with the Spaniards for the extirpation of heresy, retrenched the new liberties of the Protestants, and made attempts upon the life of Condé and of the Admiral Coligny (q.v.). These leaders of the Protestant party adopted the resolution of taking possession of the king's person. The court fled to Paris, which Condé invested; but in November 1567 a battle was fought at St Denis between Condé and the Constable Montmorency, in consequence of which Condé fell back into Lorraine; and in March 1568 Catharine concluded peace at Longjumeau. Nevertheless she persecuted the Protestants, of whom 3000 were assassinated or executed. The Protestants having, however, received assistance in troops from Germany, and in money and artillery from England, began the third religious war. But on March 13, 1569, they were defeated, and Condé their leader slain, at Jarnac by the royal troops under the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III. Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, endeavoured to reanimate the Protestants, and set up her son, afterwards Henry IV., as the head of the Protestant cause. Coligny having received further assistance of troops from Germany, laid siege to Poitiers, but was again defeated by the Duke of Anjou at Moncontour. Fresh reinforcements from England, Switzerland, and Germany enabled Coligny to take Nîmes in 1569, and to relieve La Rochelle, whilst Lanoue obtained a victory over the royal troops at Luçon. Catharine and her son now sought for peace; and a treaty, concluded at St Germain-en-Laye in August 1570, gave to the Protestants an amnesty, the free exercise of their religion everywhere except in Paris, and the possession of a number of places of security.

Catharine, having failed to overthrow the Protestant cause in the open field, sought to accomplish her object by treachery; and by a general massacre of Protestants on St Bartholomew's Day (q.v.) 1572, 30,000 Huguenots were slain within two months in Paris and in the provinces. Although deprived of their leaders, and weakened by the slaughter of great numbers of their best and bravest, the Protestants flew to arms. The Duke of Anjou, after having lost his army before La Rochelle, took advantage of his election to the throne of Poland, and in 1573 concluded a peace by which the Protestants obtained the free exercise of their religion in their places of security, Montauban, Nîmes, and La Rocheille. A section of the Roman Catholic nobility, at whose head was the Duke of Alençon, the youngest son of Catharine, from purely political motives united with the Protestants in opposition to the queen-mother and the Guises. Catharine, therefore, incited her third son, now Henry III., immediately to recommence hostilities against the Protestants. But, contrary to all expectation, the Protestant cause was in the highest degree prosperous during the year 1575. A peace was concluded at Beaulieu by which the Protestants were freed from all restrictions in the exercise of their religion, and obtained eight new places of security. The Duke of Guise originated a Catholic association, called the Holy League, at the head of which the king put himself in the Assembly of the States at Blois in 1576, and the sixth religious war began. Peace was, however, again concluded by the king himself at Bergerac, in 1577, on the former conditions; and Catharine, to diminish the power of the Duke of Guise, entered into a private treaty with Henry of Navarre. The terms of peace being violated by the court, Henry I., Prince of Condé, son of Louis I., commenced the seventh religious war (called the guerre des amoureux) in November 1579; but he and his colleague Henry of Navarre being vanquished, peace was concluded at Fleix, November 1580.

There was now a comparatively long interval of repose till 1584, when, by the death of the Duke of Anjou (formerly of Alençon), Henry of Navarre became heir to the throne of France. Hereupon Henry, Duke of Guise, exerted himself for the revival of the League, entered into an alliance with Spain and the pope for the extirpation of heresy, declared the Cardinal of Bourbon heir to the throne, and began hostilities against the Protestants. This war is commonly known as the 'war of the three Henries.' The king soon made terms with Guise, and declared all the privileges of the Protestants to be forfeited. The Protestants, having obtained troops from Germany and money from England, entered on the eighth religious war, Henry of Navarre commanding the Protestant army. The Duke of Guise, in the midst of these troubles, grasped the whole power of the state. But his designs with regard to the throne having become very evident, the king caused him and his brother the cardinal to be assassinated at the Assembly of the States at Blois in September 1588. In less than a year the king was himself assassinated by a monk named Jacques Clément, and Henry of Navarre succeeded to the throne, and signed the famous Edict of Nantes (see NANTES) on 13th April 1598.

Under the reign of Henry IV. the Protestants lived in tranquillity. But when, during the minority of Louis XIII., Mary de' Medici, the queen of Henry IV., assumed the reins of government, the marriage treaties with the Spanish court excited the apprehensions of the Protestants to such a degree that in November 1615 the Prince of Condé set up the standard of rebellion. In spite of the treaty of Londun (1616), in June 1617 a royal edict commanded the entire suppression at once of the Protestant Church and of political privileges in the province of Béarn; an edict not carried into full effect till 1620. Hostilities again broke out in May 1621. At the head of the Protestants were the two brothers, the Duke of Rohan and the Prince Soubise. Their cause, however, was feebly maintained; and after the capitulation of Montpellier, 21st October 1622, there followed a general peace, by which the Edict of Nantes was confirmed, but the right of prohibiting the assemblies of the Protestants was assumed on the part of the crown. The court, however, paid little attention to the treaty, and the Protestants again rose in arms. Soubise, with a fleet furnished by the town of La Rochelle, oftener than once defeated the weak royal navy; and Cardinal Richelieu (q.v.) resolved upon the capture of La Rochelle. This he accomplished after a heroic resistance by the inhabitants. The fall of La Rochelle was speedily followed by that of Nîmes, Montauban, Castres, and all the other Protestant strongholds. Now left defenceless, and bereft of all political power, the Protestants were entirely dependent on the will of the court, which, however, made no attempt to deprive them of their liberty of conscience. It was Louis XIV. who, at the instigation of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor Lachaise, commenced anew the persecution of the Protestants, gradually deprived them of their equal civil rights, and endeavoured to put down the Protestant Church altogether. Bodies of troops, accompanied by monks, passed through the southern provinces, compelling the inhabitants to renounce their religion, demolishing the places of worship, and putting to death the preachers (see DRAGONNADES). Fénelon was conspicuous for his zeal in seeking the conversion of Protestants. Hundreds of thousands fled to Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, and Germany. Many Protestants also made an insincere profession of Roman Catholicism. On 23d October 1685 Louis at last revoked the Edict of Nantes. Hereupon began a new flight, followed by a still more fearful persecution of the Protestants. Their marriages were declared null; their children deprived of the right of inheritance, and forcibly shut up in convents; their preachers indiscriminately put to death. From the vicinity of Nîmes, where they had always been very numerous, thousands betook themselves to the mountains of the Cévennes, and continued the exercise of their religion in secret. Amongst these and the mountaineers of the Cévennes a remarkable fanatical enthusiasm displayed itself, and, under the name of Camisards (q.v.), they maintained for a number of years a wonderfully successful opposition to the forces of the great monarchy. The War of the Cévennes, or Camisard War, was not terminated till 1706, the suppression of the local rebellion being attended with circumstances of great cruelty. France lost in twenty years more than half a million of her most active, enterprising, and industrious citizens; and, notwithstanding all the persecutions, about two millions continued to adhere to the Protestant religion.

The partial repose which the Protestants enjoyed for more than ten years was attended by a revival of their worship, especially in Provence and Dauphiné. In 1724, therefore, Louis XV., at the instigation of the Jesuits, issued a severe edict against them. The spirit of the age, however, now began to be opposed to persecution. An edict of 1752 declared marriages and baptisms by Protestant ministers to be null, and required the repetition of them by the Roman Catholic clergy. But when, upon this, many began again to flee from their country, the disgust of the Roman Catholics themselves was so much excited that the court recalled the edict. Montesquieu successfully advocated the cause of toleration; Voltaire did much to promote it by his exposure of the judicial murder of John Calas (q.v.). At last, by an edict in 1787, which indeed was not registered by the parliament till 1789, Louis XVI. declared the Protestant marriages and baptisms to be valid, and restored to the Protestants equal civil rights, except that they might not be advanced to public offices and dignities. Even in 1789 a proposal for the complete emancipation of the Protestants was rejected by the National Assembly, which, however, admitted Protestants, and even Protestant preachers, as members without objection; and in 1790 it passed a decree for the restitution of all the properties of non-Catholics confiscated since the time of Louis XIV. The Code Napoléon gave Protestants in France equal civil and political rights with Roman Catholics. The charter granted by the Bourbons acknowledged the freedom of Protestant worship, and the state pledged itself for the maintenance of the pastors; yet under the government of the Restoration the privileges of Protestants were in many ways circumscribed. After the revolution of July 1830 the Reformed Charter of France proclaimed universal freedom of conscience and of worship, which principle has been maintained in subsequent changes. Protestants were no longer subjected to many exceptional hardships, and in various important instances were protected by Napoleon III. from the arbitrary exercise of power attempted by illiberal local magistrates adverse to their religion. But the recognised Protestant Church—in which are included both Reformed and Lutherans, and of which the pastors receive small salaries from the state (see FRANCE)—was not till 1872 permitted to hold synods or general assemblies or to proselytise. At a synod held in that year the conservative party in the church, in spite of some opposition, carried their proposal that the church, which had long been without a formally binding creed, should adopt an evangelical confession. French Protestants now number 700,000 approximately, with 1400 places of worship and 950 ministers.

The first Huguenot churches in England date from the 16th century, as also the introduction of the Huguenot industries, such as the woollen, worsted, and napery trades, silk-weaving, tapestry, dyeing, glass-making, pottery, and paper-making. Under Charles II. the Savoy in London was granted to the Huguenots as a place of worship, a fashionable West-end church, in which, as a token of 'conformity,' the Common Prayer-book was read in French. From 1685 onwards thousands and thousands of Huguenots found their way to England, and gave William of Orange the support of their military talent, political interest, and financial resources. The planting of Protestantism in Ireland was greatly due to the services of the Huguenots Schomberg and Ruvigny. Under Queen Anne there were thirty Huguenot churches in London alone. Towards the close of the century more than half had disappeared through the rapid absorption of the Huguenot families in the Angli- can Church, and their rise to the first ranks in the gentry of England. Members of the Saurin family sat among the bishops, the son of Peter Allix became dean of Ely, the son of Casaubon was rector of Ickham, the families of Chenevix and Trench gave archbishops to Dublin and Tuam, and that of Romaine clergymen to London. Cavalier and Ligonier served under the British flag, Romilly adorned English law, the Martineaus shine in English letters; the Beauforts, Boileaus, Bosanquets, Bourdillons, Cazenoves, De Crespiignys, De Villiers, Du Canes, Gossets, Layards, Millais are only a few instances taken at random out of several hundred family names of Huguenot origin.

See Rulhière, Éclaircissements Historiques sur les Causes de la Révocation de l'Édit des Nantes (1788); Félice, Hist. des Protestants en France (1851); Haag, La France Protestante (1859; new ed. 1883); the works of Capefigue (1838) and Aguesse (1882); Smiles, The Huguenots in England (1867); H. M. Baird, Rise of the Huguenots (1880), and a series of three other works on their history (1885-95); R. L. Poole, The Huguenots of the Dispersion (1880); Bulletin de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français; Transactions and publications of the Huguenot Society of London, established in 1885. See also the articles FRANCE, MAROT, HENRY IV., &c.