Louis Du Guernier (1614-1659)
Louis du Guernier was born in a Reformed Church family several members of which were artists, but he was the best known. He was deeply religious but also had a...
The secret meetings
Long before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, freedom of worship for Protestants was already being questioned. Following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, three quarters...
The “Dragonnades” (1681-1685)
A “Dragonnade” was the forced lodging of dragoons, the king’s soldiers, in Huguenot homes. The latter were looted and mistreated until they renounced their faith.
The “Gobelins”
The name “Gobelins” represented many things ; an area in Paris, a tapestry workshop, but also, from the Protestant point of view, a family belonging to the Reformed faith and a...
Paul-Henri Marron (1754-1832)
Paul-Henri Marron came from a Huguenot family which had sought refuge in the Low Countries. He was the first pastor of the Reformed Church in Paris.
The anti-Reform policy (1661-1685)
In order to implement his policy of restricting the “allegedly Reformed religion”, King Louis XIV first resorted to legal, peaceful means and then to force.
Repression and persecution of the Reformed Church (1685-1700)
After the Edict of Nantes (1685), the recalcitrant Protestants were severely repressed.
Henri de Rohan (1574-1638)
Henri de Rohan, a protestant from Brittany, had the privilege of being protected by Henri IV, and at the king’s death he became the leader of the reformed protestants in...
The sentences imposed on Protestants
The Edict of Fontainebleau (1685) and various decrees of 1686 imposed penalties on Protestants.
Sentenced to the galleys
Roughly 550 galley-rowers spent up to thirty years of their life in galleys for refusing to renounce their faith.
The prison sentence
Women and children that were too young to serve as galley-rowers were sent to prison. However, many men were kept in prison for long periods of time, some before they...
The Lausanne Theological Seminary (1726-1812)
The seminary in Lausanne was started at the instigation of Antoine Court. Its purpose was to train those called to the ministry in France during the “Desert” period.
Religious practices
Communal religious practices of the Reformed Church took place in church buildings. The worshippers would go to hear the “sermon”, to celebrate the sacraments and for catechism. Individual or family-based...
Prophetic Movement
In the years following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a Prophetic Movement, quite alien to the Reformed tradition, stirred up Protestant peasants from the South of France and...
The theological controversies
The seventeenth century was the period when Catholics and Protestants were involved in great arguments (“controversy”) with each other, both oral and written, obviously fuelled by the theologians.
The Pastors
About 700 Reformed pastors were in charge of the towns and cities designated as places of worship by the Edict of Nantes, and lived there with their families.
The organisation of the Reformed Church
The Reformed Churches were organised according to the order of 1559, as had been the case in the sixteenth century. They were ruled by a series of bodies at local,...