Our Ancestors The Huguenots
In France
The Huguenots were French Protestants. Protestantism was introduced into France during the Reformation, early in the sixteenth century. It was accepted in France by many members of the nobility, by people engaged in intellectual pursuits, and by members of the middle class, particularly those having special competences in the professions, trades, and handicrafts. The Protestant movement in France was not a proletarian upheaval or a liberal
agitation. On the contrary, it was a solid, conservative movement of notable respectability on the part of many of the most responsible and most accomplished people in France.
The Huguenot Church grew rapidly. At its first synod in 1559, fifteen churches were represented. Over two thousand churches sent representatives to the Huguenot Church synod in 1561.
In the beginning, the new religion was respected, and the Huguenots were greatly favored by Francis I because of their standing and abilities. Later, however, Francis I, for political reasons, turned against them. Thereafter, they experienced alternately high favor and outrageous persecution. It must be realized that ninety percent of France was Roman Catholic and that heresy was viewed by the man in the street as treason against God. For this reason, it was not difficult for the Crown, under pressure of international politics, or for those who envied the honor shown the competent Huguenots, to instigate trouble, repressions, and even cruel persecution. Clashes between Roman Catholics and Huguenots occurred repeatedly, and these clashes frequently erupted into open warfare on a grand scale.
Economic considerations also influenced Huguenot persecution. The Huguenots were workers. With hard common sense they realized that they must produce what they consumed. They would give work to a beggar but never alms. Even Richelieu, the so-called, Nemesis of the Huguenots,
who forbade them to leave France, said, They are workers; France needs them.
In a state in which one-sixth of the national income went to a non-productive church – a church protective of its paternalistic control of the people and to a large extent resentful of the government – an economic attitude such as that of the Huguenots was bound to be less than popular. Furthermore, severe physical penalties were imposed upon industrious folk found working on any of the many ecclesiastical holy days on which all work was forbidden. The Huguenots were therefore subjected to economic as well as religious oppression.
The names of individual Huguenot leaders – the Condés, the Colignys, Henry of Navarre, and others – are well known to us. It is not intended here to review them. The purpose of this account is merely to emphasize the qualities of the Huguenots and the reasons that impelled them to migrate to other countries.
Some of the highlights of the struggle may, however, be set down: In 1560, our Huguenot ancestors, convinced that their persecution would continue as long as their nemesis, the House of Guise, held influence over the throne of France, conspired to arrest the Duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and to bring them before a judicial tribunal. The plot was well-organized and guarded. But somebody talked, the Conspiracy of Amboise
became The Tumult of Amboise,
and a carnival of blood resulted from the charge that the plot was against the king-himself, not just the duke and the cardinal.
After the early persecutions and following a retaliatory plot by the Huguenots, the Pacification of Amboise in 1563 again allowed the Huguenots freedom of worship. However, this freedom soon began to be whittled away, and further persecutions followed.
The marriage on August 18, 1572, of Catherine de Medici's daughter, Marguerite de Valois to Henry of Navarre (who became Henry IV in 1589), drew most of the Huguenot leaders (then in high favor) to Paris for the ceremonies. This gave the Valois and the Guise factions an opportunity to organize a deadly act of treachery. On Saint Bartholomew's Day, August 24, as a special signal bell rang out, soldiers and organized mobs fell upon the Huguenots, and thousands of them were slaughtered. Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was among the first to fall at the hands of a servant of the Duke de Guise. Pope Gregory XIII even had a medal struck off in honor of the occasion and sent it to Catherine.
Civil wars followed, and in 1587 Henry of Navarre inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Roman Catholics. On April 13, 1598, as Henry IV, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted to Huguenots toleration and freedom to worship in their own way.
Although the provisions of the Edict were not strictly or uniformly followed, yet for a time, at least, there was greater freedom for the Huguenots.
However, on October 18, 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, and this revocation caused France the loss of a half million persons, among whom were some of her most skilled artisans.
It was not until November 28, 1787, after the United States of America had gained its independence from England, that the Edict of Toleration was issued, guaranteeing religious liberty to all. It has been said that Lafayette, a Roman Catholic, was greatly impressed by the fact that so many of the American leaders were of Huguenot ancestry and that, upon returning to France, he urged an Edict of Toleration upon Louis XVI. However, by the time of the Edict of Toleration, the Huguenot emigrants, with few exceptions, had raised families and sunk their roots so deeply in other lands as to prevent their return to France.
During the entire period between the early part of the sixteenth century and 1787, the conservative, respectable, accomplished Huguenots left France for other countries in varying numbers with each recurring wave of persecution.
France had opened her own veins and spilt her best blood when she drained herself of her Huguenots, and everywhere, in every country that would receive them, this amazing strain acted as a yeast.1
1 Esther Forbes. Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), 1942.
Emigration to Other European Countries
The Huguenots who left France during their persecutions quite naturally emigrated to the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox countries of Europe. They went particularly to Germany, Holland, and England, although some went to Switzerland and other Protestant countries. They were warmly received, and many of them remained to enrich those countries.
Emigration to the American Colonies
Huguenot settlers immigrated into the American colonies directly from France and indirectly from the Protestant countries of Europe. This immigration began at an early date – before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 – and continued for over one hundred years. Although the Huguenots settled along almost the entire eastern coast of North America, they showed a preference for what are now the states of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina.
Just as France suffered a notable loss through emigration of the intelligent, capable Huguenots, so the American colonies gained through their immigration. The colonists who had already settled North America were mostly farmers, laborers, ministers, soldiers, sailors, and people who had been engaged in government. The Huguenots supplied the colonies with excellent physicians and a large number of expert artisans and craftsmen. For example, Irenée du Pont learned how to make gunpowder from the eminent Lavoisier, and Apollos Rivoire, a goldsmith, was the father of Paul Revere.
Moreover, the Huguenots adapted themselves readily to the New World and showed an astonishing propensity for marrying people who were not Huguenots. Their descendants increased rapidly and spread quickly throughout the American Colonies. Today, people of Huguenot origin are found in all parts of our country.
Remember that our inheritance of honorable names and of the incessant blessing of civil and religious liberty carry with them the obligation to keep them in honor and maintain and defend them ; that we hold them in trust, to enjoy in our lifetime and transmit them untarnished and undiminished to posterity. We cherish these traditions, not for the glorification of family names, but for the honor and advancement of humanity, as incentives to those private and public virtues that constitute the true strength of a nation.
--The Honorable Thomas F. Bayard (1828-1898), American statesman, diplomat, and lawyer; United States Ambassador to Great Britain, 1893.
