The Huguenots: Observations and Lessons for Today

Kenneth Brownell

It was 450 years ago that on the 24th of August 1572 what has become known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre began in France. Over the next days some 2000 Protestants or Huguenots, were killed in Paris and, in the provinces over the next weeks, another 4000. Among those killed in Paris was Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the political leader of the Protestant party as well as the philosopher Pierre Ramus. Victims included the members of the Protestant nobility gathered in Paris for the marriage of the Protestant Henri of Navarre to Marguerite de Valois, the sister of the French King, but also members of the Protestant middle classes and artisans. The utter vicious brutality is gut-wrenching to read about. It wasn’t only that people were merely killed but were with often sadistic cruelty. Perhaps most poignantly is an account of one family that was killed apart from its youngest member of whom it was recorded: ‘A little girl unable to speak’.

That quote is at the head of the chapter on the massacre in the late Geoffrey Treasure’s superb book, The Huguenots [1]. The book was mentioned at the Westminster Conference in 2021 by Paul Wells who after a career teaching theology at the Reformed seminary in Aix-en-Provence knows a good deal about French Protestantism. I cannot recommend this book too highly to understand not only what led to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, but also about the history of French Protestantism from its roots in French society and the Renaissance, its beginnings in the 1550s and its development and travails until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It is a fascinating story that has much significance for us today as in very different circumstances we face living as Christians in a culture that is increasingly hostile to what we believe.

Rather than giving an overview of the book I want to highlight several things from it that to my mind speak to us today.

1.     The birth and growth of French Protestantism from the 1550s was a remarkable work of God.

The most famous French Protestant is John Calvin who was born in Noyon in Picardy in northern France in 1509. While a student in Paris he became associated with the emerging evangelical movement and was eventually forced to flee. In time he arrived in Geneva where he was persuaded by another Frenchman, William Farel, to stay and help him in the reformation of the city. Except for a few years in Strasbourg, Calvin remained in Geneva for the rest of his life. However, his heart was with his native land and until his death in 1564 he did all he could to advance the cause of the gospel there. In the 1540s people from all ranks of society began to identify with the Reform movement and groups began to meet for Bible study and prayer. By the 1550s churches were being formed for which the Company of Pastors in Geneva began to train Frenchmen as pastors who were then sent back to France. The next decade or so was a remarkable period of growth. Geoffrey Treasure estimates that by 1572 there were 1,200 Protestant churches in France with about 1,800,000 million members or about a tenth of the population. That is remarkable growth by any standard! Of course, there were many social, political, economic, and cultural factors that providentially facilitated this growth, but from what the Bible teaches us we must also say that the key factor was the power of God in the gospel.

Looking at our own situation today in a Europe that is increasingly secular (as exemplified in the EU not even recognising the Christian foundations of European culture and the cultural accommodation of the historic institutional churches) as well as religious (in a bad way with Islam, ‘new age’ spiritualities of various kinds, superstition, etc.) we can take heart that what God did in 16th century France he can do in 21st century Britain and Europe. Where is the God of Elijah and the early French Protestants? He is alive and active as he ever has been and ever will be in advancing his kingdom in this world. In prayer we must ask, seek and knock until God gives us the Spirit in renewing and reviving power.

Sadly, the evangelistic vigour of French Protestantism was not always consistent and latterly less evident. Treasure notes how in the Languedoc region in southern France there were large Protestant communities but that few pastors learned Occitan, the local dialect, and that preaching and public worship were in French. That meant that Protestant churches tended to be made up of relatively literate and middle-class people. More latterly during the relative calm of the so-called Golden Age of the 1630s to 60s Huguenots generally settled down to living with the relative freedoms they were granted. This is how Treasure describes it:

In general.…Huguenots felt constrained to live cautiously, on their guard, some more comfortable than others, in all aspects of life prudent…. They did not seek to convert though were happy when a convert came, attracted by their plain sincerity and sober living: the Gospel without frills. The main venture into controversy was on home ground, where [theological] academics fought over rival interpretations of Calvinist doctrine.

There is a warning for us in all this. How much is our evangelism and church life content with certain groups of people and little effort is made to take the gospel into other cultures and groups? And how much are we ‘constrained to live cautiously and ‘in all aspects of life prudent’ out of fear of upsetting people or institutions or the blowback we might get? And while theological controversy is sometimes necessary does it sap evangelistic and missionary zeal? After they were granted toleration in 1689 English Nonconformists followed a similar path until the great awakening shook them. Let’s not merely welcome the occasional convert but seek them as we take the gospel to the world.

There is another aspect of the waning evangelistic impact of the French Huguenots that is worth highlighting. During the so-called Golden Age and after the revocation leading Roman Catholics changed the tone of their preaching while many Huguenot pastors did not. The former, bishops such as Jacques-Benigne Bossuet and Francois Fenelon deliberately became less polemical in their preaching to Protestants and instead stressed the central truths of Christianity, particularly the person of Christ, and the spiritual and devotional life. They wanted to woo Protestants rather than argue with them as exemplified in Fenelon’s Spiritual Letters to Women. He advised priests in one heavily Huguenot region ‘not to rouse the Huguenots by argument but to expound the gospel with authority at once gentle and persuasive’. While he and others had some successes, far more Protestants didn’t convert so that in the end even the eirenic Fenelon agreed that force was necessary. Sadly, on the Protestant side there was what Treasure describes as a pastoral and spiritual crisis. In part this was due to the Catholic Church putting its house in order in the wake of the Council of Trent, but it was also due to a dulling of spiritual life in the Reformed churches. With some notable exceptions such as Jean Daille at Charenton near Paris many Reformed pastors were less than inspiring, their sermons perhaps tending to being, in Treasure’s words, ‘instructing rather than uplifting’. He goes on to record the observation of a sympathetic English visitor who felt that many pastors were too didactic in their preaching and that ‘to deal with [Catholics] by main force of argument, and in the fervent spirit of zeal, as Protestants too often do, is not the way’. I wonder whether many conservative evangelical and Reformed apologists and preachers today repeat the mistake that seems to have been characteristic of some preaching among the Huguenots? In our preaching and evangelism are we too cerebral and zealous for a cause rather than trying to woo people by, as well as clearly teaching the truth, also winsomely and warmly proclaiming Christ? Certainly, that is what the great 19th century French Reformed preacher, Adolphe Monod, did from his pulpit at the Oratoire in Paris as did his younger contemporary, C H Spurgeon, from his pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.

2.     Vitally important elements in the consolidation of the French Protestant movement were theology and organisation.

John Calvin wrote the latter editions of his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion in part to defend and commend the Protestant faith to the French King, Francis I, but also to provide the emerging French Protestant movement with a theological foundation. Latterly written in French (and as such one of the most formative influences on the development of the language), the Institutes expounded the Reformed faith clearly and warmly in an accessible way that was intended to help Christians understand and live out the gospel. As Treasure puts it: ‘Calvin desired to teach those he envisaged as hungering and thirsting after Christ, the way of salvation. Through Christ God had set before them the treasures of His grace’. For ministers, he goes on to write, ‘along with the Bible it was to be the foundation text. For them Calvin would be, beyond question, the master, his teaching the standard by which faith and conduct must be tested’. And although in the middle years of the 17th century there was increasing variation among the Reformed, that there was such theological cohesion was in large measure due under God to the formative influence of Calvin. That influence is a reminder to us of the importance of theology in the advance of the gospel. Historically the impact of movements of renewal and revival have been deeper and longer lasting when they have had strong theological foundations. We need theologians like Calvin who teach and write to both inform and equip Christians in general and ministers in particular for the work of the gospel and the godly life.

But as well as theology there was also organisation. The church if Geneva became a model for how churches should be organised. Local congregations were organised with members who elected lay elders to govern them along with the pastor as the teaching elder. Churches in an area were organised into a group called a classis or what English-speaking Presbyterians call a presbytery. Nationally the churches met in a synod, the first of which was held in 1559. Broadly speaking this is what is known as Presbyterianism today, although there are many variations and differences of emphasis nationally. What this did in France as elsewhere was to give the Protestant movement an organisational structure which hugely contributed to its strength. It was not a dispersed and disparate movement but one that had coherence and focus, the basis of which was a confession of faith. Through all its vicissitudes organisation helped French Protestantism resist persecution and survive. Even after the churches were forced underground after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes there was some coordination and eventually a new organisation. Whatever form it takes today some organisation is needed for a gospel movement to flourish.

3.     The emergence and growth of French Protestantism was accompanied by persecution.

The emerging Reform movement was quickly seen as a threat by the French authorities, both religious and secular. Very early on men and women were imprisoned and, in some cases, executed often by being burned at the stake. Many of the pastors that Calvin and his colleagues sent back to France were targeted. Calvin wrote letters to these men to encourage them in their sufferings, most famously to five imprisoned in Lyon awaiting execution. From time-to-time congregations were attacked and occasionally massacred as happened at Vassy in 1562 among other places. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 was the most notorious example of this, lamented across Protestant Europe and celebrated with bell ringing and a mass in Rome. Later, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1684 Protestants were fiercely persecuted including many women such as Marie Durand imprisoned for years for their refusal to recant their faith. The suffering of French Protestants in this period is a powerful witness to us of the cost of being faithful followers of Jesus. We must expect such hostility if the gospel advances in power in our generation. Just as in 16th, 17th and 18th century France so today the governmental, religious and cultural authorities will feel threatened and do all they can to oppose gospel Christianity. We may not be imprisoned or killed (although in some parts of the world Christians are), but we can be cancelled in other ways.

However, we must be under no illusion about how destructive persecution can be. After Louis XIV came to his personal rule in 1661 the rights of Protestants under the Edict of Nantes were slowly chipped away. The early and middle years of the 17th century were relatively easy ones for Protestants. Many were very prominent in society and successful in various areas of life and most could get on with their lives, often living peaceably with Catholic neighbours. Some Protestants, especially among the nobility, began to convert to Catholicism. There was a concerted effort by the Catholic church to convert Protestant nobles to Catholicism. Some, such as Bishop Bossuet, sought to gently persuade prominent Protestants by emphasising the common things they believed as well as highlighting the unity of the Catholic church in contrast to the way Protestants tended to divide and fight against one another. However, in the decades before the dissolution pressure increased with, for example, teaching children and meeting in homes being forbidden. Protestant churches or temples were torn down with increasing frequency. Significantly, we see much the same happening with Christians in China today. On the eve of the revocation measures such as quartering troops in Protestant homes or dragonnades were introduced. This with the threat of taking their children away drove many to convert to Catholicism at least superficially. Many others who didn’t, at least some 200,000 or so, emigrated, many of them to England. Many of these people were highly skilled and their emigration had baleful consequences for France. When he was convinced that there were no more Protestants in France to be tolerated Louis XIV revoked the edict his grandfather had promulgated. Even so, there were still some estimated 700,000 Protestants in France. They were forced underground and practiced their faith secretly as the government continued to persecute them. It was only with the French Revolution that Protestants were again tolerated. Persecution took a great toll on French Protestantism, as it can still do. In God’s purposes persecution can sometimes lead to the growth of the church but is sometimes doesn’t.

4.     The French Protestant movement shows that too close an alignment with political interests is dangerous.

Given the circumstances of France in the 16th century it would be too much to expect the emerging Protestant movement not to have been caught up in politics. Indeed, the Protestant Reformation in general was entwined with politics whether it be in England with King Henry VIII’s marriage problems, or in Scotland with John Knox’s conflict with Mary Stuart or in Luther’s collaboration with German princes. Providentially the political context was used by God to advance the Reformation, but humanly it was a messy process on the ground and France was no exception. One of the remarkable things in France was how many aristocratic families became Protestant which in part was why the French state felt so threatened. And as it tried to clamp down on the movement Protestants began to take up arms under the leadership of aristocrats. This wasn’t done by churches as such, even though some pastors could preach quite politically incendiary sermons, but by Protestant magistrates in towns and cities as well as military officers. Beginning in 1562 there were several wars of religion which tore the country apart which only ended with the Edict of Nantes in 1598. By then the Protestant heir of the throne, Henry of Navarre, had converted to Catholicism having said famously that ‘Paris was worth a mass’. Nevertheless, Henry wanted a peaceful kingdom and promulgated the edict to give his former co-religionists a measure of toleration within France. But it must be said that the political dimension of what happened brought out the worst of many Protestants as well as Catholics. Religion became tribalized and a cause to defend. Many identified as Protestants for less than spiritual reasons. Treasure captures well the effect of this on many Protestants:

In this climate…it became natural for the faithful to see themselves more as guardians of the temple [a Protestant church building] than evangelists for the Gospel. Were they more concerned about protecting their rights and their property than about presenting a generous, amiable face to the world?

All of which is a warning to us of the dangers of too close an alignment of church and politics. In the United Kingdom we saw the baleful effects of this in the late 19th century with the Nonconformist interest becoming too closely entwined with politics. Today evangelicals in the United States are facing this challenge. But even here in the UK can we be more concerned about our rights as Christians and the ‘culture wars’ than about the advance of the gospel? And can we become more concerned about defending our rights as Christians than in reaching the lost and in ‘presenting a generous, amiable face to the world’? Someone once told me that in Hungary there was a saying that a person could be a better Calvinist than a Christian. Whatever our theological distinctives, could that be said of us? Perhaps more comparable to the situation in France in the 17th century is the situation in a country like Nigeria where in response to Muslim attacks on Christians, some are tempted to resort to arms to defend predominantly Christian communities. While that is understandable it is dangerous for the spiritual life of the church and of Christians. Having said all that, it was out of the maelstrom of religious and political conflict in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries that the political toleration we enjoy and take for granted emerged in the wake of the wars of religion. In the increasingly political polarisation of our western cultures today we discard that legacy of toleration to our peril.

5.     The French Protestant movement was distinguished by some very great leaders as well as ordinary Christians.

Great as Calvin was, there were many other great leaders in the French Protestant movement. One of the greatest was Jeanne d’Albert who as the Queen of Navarre ruled Bearn in the Pyrenees foothills as an independent kingdom and was the mother of King Henry IV of France. She was the daughter of the formidable and learned Marguerite d’Angouleme, the sister of Francis I and by marriage Queen of Navarre, who encouraged many of those associated with the new humanistic learning from which the Reformation emerged. Jeanne was a convinced Protestant who established Navarre as a Protestant realm where people like Calvin found refuge when in danger for their faith. There was Jean Marcar, a pastor, through whom many nobles and others such as the Prince de Conde and the Chatillon brothers (Gaspard who became the Protestant political leader and Odet who was a cardinal and bishop of Beauvais) were converted to the Protestant faith. There was Jean Daille, the pastor of one the greatest Protestant temples in France at Charenton outside Paris from 1627 until his death in 1670. As well as a courageous leader of Protestantism and able defender of it against the claims of Rome, Daille was one of the greatest preachers in Europe. There was the great architect Salomon de Brosse whose buildings in Paris can still be seen and the artist Abraham de Bosse who was one of the founders of the French Royal Academy of Arts. There was Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, a Daniel-like figure, close to the centre of power and a great defender of his fellow Protestants as well as a political thinker. There was Antoine Court who as a young pastor in the years after the revocation faithfully and always in peril of arrest and death travelled around southern France preaching, organising and strengthening beleaguered Protestants, or the ‘Church of the Desert’ as they became known. And I must mention Marie Durand, who after the revocation was imprisoned with a many other women in Tour de Constance at Aigues-Mortes on the south coast. Marie was sent there in 1715 at the age of 15 and was only released 38 years later having never renounced her faith. Sadly, many others died in prison as did many men on the galleys.  During her time in prison, Marie engraved on the wall the word ‘Register’ which was the local patois for the French word ‘resister’ or resist. So many other French Protestants in this period could be named and many not, but whose names are known to God and who are now in his presence having been faithful unto death.

The Bible encourages us to remember our leaders from the past who spoke the word of God and to imitate their faith as we consider the outcome of their lives since Jesus us the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:7-8). It seems to me that French Protestant leaders and people particularly merit our attention because of how they lived as a minority in a hostile culture. Of course, they were sinners like us all. Some behaved badly and some compromised. But there is so much for us to learn from them as from the Puritans in England and Wales, Covenanters in Scotland, and Calvinists in the Netherlands under Spanish rule in the same period. They faced governments making absolutist claims and demanding total religious conformity. To be fair, the Reformed and Lutherans also wanted total religious conformity which is in part is why there was so much conflict in this period. Toleration was not much valued. But with all their imperfections and limitations, there were many examples of godliness among French Protestants that merit our imitation as we live in a hostile world in which we are increasingly marginalised and may even be persecuted.

6.     The French Protestant movement was notable for its distinctive lifestyle.

Years ago, I read something in Emile Leonard’s great history of French Protestantism that struck me and that was what he called the ‘Reformed lifestyle’ that distinguished the Huguenots. To many Catholics, Protestants were noted for their sober, often black clothing, their austere public worship and their psalm singing which many found provocative. Perhaps even more provocative was the simplicity of Huguenot burial ceremonies which were the opposite of what Catholics thought appropriate. And because Protestant temples were by law often outside the towns, on Sundays Huguenots were very visible as they made their way to them. But these things expressed a deeper reality. Geoffrey Treasure describes this in the chapter entitled ‘The Eye of the Storm: Huguenot Lives and Conditions’. French Protestants were:

 …committed persons, the visible, mostly literate, many substantial in the community, regular in worship, serious and active in practical Christianity, distinctive…in their way of life. They had made or inherited a conscious decision; they were unafraid to advertise their difference by the mere fact of choosing to worship God in their own way.

The Huguenots were distinctive in their lifestyle because they chose ‘to worship God in their own way’, a way they believed was mandated in Scripture. Supporting this distinctive lifestyle was the pastoral care and discipline exercised in Reformed churches that Calvin had thought so necessary along with faithful preaching and the sacraments in establishing the identity of true churches. Such discipline had its downsides, but as Treasure notes:

the Calvinist discipline had largely beneficial effects, providing, within its system of constant vigilance, the good example and expectation of decent conduct that stemmed from a fundamental tenet of its theology. Man was responsible for his conduct, as an individual saved by grace, belonging to a community of the Elect, under the eye of God his Saviour.

It seems to me that it is imperative that as evangelicals we have a distinctive lifestyle shaped by the gospel of grace that sets us apart from the unbelieving world. We may want to avoid superficial things such as distinctive clothing and forms of speech that may be weird or quaint for their own sake. However, it may be that we have gone too far the other direction in wanting to appear normal to the unbelieving world. Surely if we believe in the biblical virtue of modesty, for example, it will affect how we dress. The danger is a form of legalism or the inculcation of outward conformity to community standards or cultural norms that has little if anything to do with spiritual life. But if the gospel is transforming us as Christians, it must be seen in the way we live. The presence of the Spirit will be evident in some measure in our relationships with Christians and non-Christians, but so too will it be in the decisions we make, how we spend our money, how we use our time, where we live, our ambitions, our child-rearing and so much more. We will, like the Huguenots at their best, be responsible for our conduct as individuals saved by grace, belonging to the community of the Elect and under the eye of God our Saviour. And as the hostility grows and we are increasingly marginalised as the Huguenots were in the 17th century, such a gospel-shaped lifestyle is not only imperative but hugely attractive and not least when seen in churches characterised by vibrant faith, hope and love.

Let me end with these words from Geoffrey Treasure that speak so powerfully to the church today. I was moved to tears as I read them. Take them to heart and be inspired by the faithful witness of the Huguenots. Treasure is writing of the time after the revocation.

Those who attended the…open air services, mainly in the wilder south, that could still attract large numbers, took their lives in their hands. To government they were ‘Fanatics’, resisters, potentially dangerous: they could be shot, women and children among them. As for the early Christians of the Roman catacombs, caution and discretion were the necessary condition for the persisting life of the church in the Desert. So were conviction and courage. If they had not been sure that they were right to hold to their beliefs, that their church, attenuated as it had become, was a true church; if they had not had the will and courage to be, even the most privileged of them, a people apart, then our story would indeed have ended on a note of regret. Rather, I suggest that the reader will find impressive, even inspiring, the record of these men and women of faith. From the elation of the early days, followed by the stern tests of persecution and civil war; to the conditional rights enjoyed under the regime of the Edict; to the renewal of the persecution and its shocking climax; to the creation of the church in the Desert, the mindset is constant. Huguenots were not afraid to be strangers in their own country. Faith was all.

Trusting in the Lord Jesus, are we willing in our generation to be strangers in our own country as a people apart as we make our way as pilgrims to the eternal city with foundations whose architect and builder is God?

_________

[1] Geoffrey Treasure, Huguenots (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013). Treasure taught history at Harrow School and was head of the department before his retirement. He wrote several books on French history.

Kenneth Brownell

Studied at Harvard University and the University of St Andrews. Former pastor (retired) of East London Tabernacle Baptist Church.