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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 abbé Prévost, 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-Étienne, 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 mentalités, and it offers a new focus on the process of “reform from above” in pre-Revolutionary France.
Table of Contents for
The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685–1787: The Enlightenment Debate on Toleration by Geoffrey Adams
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE: THE REVOCATION IMPOSED, 1685–1715
I. The Edict of Fontainebleau: The Rationalization of Intolerance
II. Thunderous Applause, Discreet Dissent: The Intellectual Reaction to the Revocation
III. A Three-way Impasse: The Huguenots, The Clergy, and The State
PART TWO: THE REVOCATION ATTACKED, 1715–1760
IV. An Abstract Combat: Voltaire's First Battles Against Intolerance, 1713–1750
V. Montesquieu and the Huguenots: A Conservative’s View of Minority Rights
VI. A Friend in the Enemy Camp: The Abbé Prévost
VII. Controller–General Machault Provokes a Public Debate on Huguenot Rights, 1751–1760
VIII. Encyclopedists and Calvinists: An Exercise in Mutual Aid
IX. A Case Study in Incompatibility: The Philosophe Voltaire and the Calvinist La Beaumelle, 1750–1756
X. Mutual Disenchantment: Voltaire and the Genevans, 1755–1762
XI. Distant Cousins: Rousseau and the French Calvinists
XII. The Stage in the Service of Huguenot Emancipation: Voltaire, Fenouillot de Falbaire, and Mercier
XIII. Reaction Put to Rout: The Dictionnaire Philosophique, the Last of the Encyclopedie and the Bélisaire Affair, 1764–1767
PART THREE: THE REVOCATION UNDONE, 1760–1787
XIV. The 1760s: From Words to Deeds
XV. The Calas Affair: A Catalyst for the National Conscience, 1762–1765
XVI. Large Expectations, Limited Gains: The Reform Efforts of Turgot and Malesherbes, 1774–1776
XVII. Conservatives and Pragmatists Try Their Hand: Necker, Armand, and the Parlementaires, 1776–1784
XVIII. Genteel Conspirators: Breteuil and Malesherbes Set the Stage for Reform, 1784–1787
XIX. Spurs to Action: The D’Anglure Affair and the Dutch Crisis, 1787
XX. Toleration Triumphant: The Edict of 1787
Epilogue
Selected Bibliography
Index