“Edict of Nantes” – granted

ON THIS DATE

Henry IV (of Navarre) King of France, 4/13/1598, granted Huguenot Believers “The Edict of Nantes” (rhymes with font) a city in Brittany. This “too little, too late” law granted a degree of liberty to his “Protestant” subjects upholding some freedom of conscience and permitting Believers to hold public worship in parts of France – but not in Paris. “Protestants” could keep places they held in August 1597.

Catholicism was restored in ALL places where its practice had been interrupted & expanding true worship in France was made legally impossible. Cardinal de Richelieu & Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes.  The Huguenots remembering the “St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre” (8/23/1572) in which thousands (estimates run from 5000 to 30,000 were killed) emigrated—to the British Isles, Prussia, Holland, & the New World, leaving France 400,000 people short in the very important industrious/commercial groups.

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