oct 22, 1685 - Recovation of Edict of Nantes
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The Revocation of Edict of Nantes (Edict of Fontainebleau) was an edict issued by Louis XIV of France. The Edict of Nantes had been issued on 13 April 1598 by Henry IV of France. It had granted the Huguenots substantial rights in the predominantly Catholic state. Through the Edict, Henry had aimed to promote civil unity. The Edict treated some Protestants with tolerance and opened a path for secularism. It offered general freedom of conscience to individuals and many specific concessions to the Protestants, such as amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights, including the right to work in any field, and to bring grievances directly to the king. It marked the end of the French Wars of Religion which had afflicted France during the second half of the 16th century.From the outset, religious toleration in France had been a royal, rather than a popular policy. The lack of universal adherence to his religion did not sit well with Louis XIV's vision of perfected absolutism. By the Edict of Fontainebleau, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches, as well as the closing of Protestant schools. This policy made official the persecution already enforced since the dragonnades created in 1681 by the king in order to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism. As a result of the officially sanctioned persecution by the dragoons who were billeted upon prominent Huguenots, a large number of Protestants left France over the next two decades. They sought asylum in England, the United Provinces, Sweden, Switzerland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire, the Cape Colony in Africa, and North America. On 17 January 1686, Louis XIV himself claimed that out of a Huguenot population of 800,000 to 900,000, only 1,000 to 1,500 had remained in France. The revocation caused France to suffer a kind of early brain drain, as it lost a large number of skilled craftsmen.
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