The Huguenots of Paris and the Coming of Religious Freedom, 1685-1789

Description

How did the Huguenots of Paris survive, and even prosper, in the eighteenth century when the majority Catholic population was notorious for its hostility to Protestantism? Why, by the end of the Old Regime, did public opinion overwhelmingly favour giving Huguenots greater rights? This study of the growth of religious toleration in Paris traces the specific history of the Huguenots after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. David Garrioch identifies the roots of this transformation of attitudes towards the minority Huguenot population in their own methods of resistance to persecution and pragmatic government responses to it, as well as in the particular environment of Paris. Above all, this book identifies the extraordinary shift in Catholic religious culture that took place over the century as a significant cause of change, set against the backdrop of cultural and intellectual transformation that we call the Enlightenment.

David Garrioch is Professor of History at Monash University, Victoria. He has written widely on the social history of Paris in the eighteenth century, including The Making of Revolutionary Paris (2002), which won the New South Wales Premier's Prize for History in 2003.

'David Garrioch's book on the Calvinist Parisians (Huguenots) from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the eve of the French Revolution is a welcome one. In a clear and easy to read style, Garrioch brings us a much-needed study of Protestant Parisians in the eighteenth century ... His study fills an important gap in the cultural history of Paris that traces the development of a diverse and tolerant city, a reflection of the economic and intellectual changes that marked the eighteenth century as a whole.' Xavier Marechaux, H-France 'Garrioch demonstrates his ability to connect the practices of everyday life to larger patterns of social and cultural transformation ... By bringing together the various communities that shaped early modern Paris, he underscores the diversity of religious experience in Ancien Regime France and the continuing importance of religious sensibilities in the Age of Light.' Huguenot Society Journal 'Although the Huguenots are a central theme in the historiography of sixteenth - and seventeenth -century France, they tend to fade from view in studies of the eighteenth, appearing in a few dramatic episodes ... Garrioch, an expert on eighteenth-century Paris, gives us a fuller picture. He shows how this banned minority managed to survive and eventually thrive in the capital, thanks to the rise of religious toleration over the course of the eighteenth century.' Charles Walton, The Journal of Modern History