The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685-1787: The Enlightenment Debate on Toleration

The decision of Louis XIV to revoke the Edict of Nantes and thus liquidate French Calvinism was well received in the intellectual community which was deeply prejudiced against the Huguenots. This antipathy would gradually disappear. After the death of the Sun King, a more sympathetic view of the Protestant minority was presented to French readers by leading thinkers such as Montesquieu, the abb Pr vost, and Voltaire. By the middle years of the eighteenth century, liberal clerics, lawyers, and government ministers joined Encyclopedists in urging the emancipation of the Reformed who were seen to be loyal, peaceable and productive. Then, in 1787, thanks to intensive lobbying by a group which included Malesherbes, Lafayette, and the future revolutionary Rabaut Saint- tienne, the government of Louis XVI issued an edict of toleration which granted the Huguenots a modest bill of civil and religious rights.

Adams' illuminating work treats a major chapter in the history of toleration; it explores in depth a fascinating shift in mentalit s, and it offers a new focus on the process of "reform from above" in pre-Revolutionary France.

Author: Geoffrey Adams
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Published: 04/15/1991
Pages: 349
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780889202092

About the Author
Adams, Geoffrey: - Geoffrey Adams is a founding member of Scholars' Circle, a group of retired academics at Concordia University, and author of The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685-1787 (WLU Press).