The ''Dragonnades'' were a French government policy instituted by King

Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...

in 1681 to intimidate

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

(

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

) families into converting to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. This involved the

billeting A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier. Soldiers are generally billeted in barracks or garrisons when not on combat duty, alth ...

of ill-disciplined dragoons in Protestant households with implied permission to abuse the inhabitants and destroy or steal their possessions. The soldiers employed in this role were satirized as "missionary dragoons".

Background

With the

Edict of Nantes The Edict of Nantes () was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was in essence completely Catholic. In the edict, Henry aimed pr ...

in 1598, Henry IV had ended France's

Wars of Religion A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war ( la, sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to wh ...

by granting a relatively high degree of toleration to the Huguenots, as well as political and military privileges. The latter were abolished in 1629 under the

Peace of Alès The Peace of Alais, also known as the Edict of Alès or the Edict of Grace, was a treaty negotiated by Cardinal Richelieu with Huguenot leaders and signed by King Louis XIII of France on 28 June 1629. It confirmed the basic principles of the Edi ...

following the Huguenot rebellions, but the provisions of the Edict granting religious tolerance were largely maintained under the governments of the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. Louis XIV, however, aimed to have religious uniformity in his kingdom. Initially he offered the Huguenots financial incentives to convert, but this had limited effect. By the late 1670s he decided upon a harsher policy. He began to order the destruction of Huguenot churches and the closure of Huguenot schools.

Implementation

Louis XIV combined legal persecution with a policy of terrorizing recalcitrant Huguenots who refused to convert to Catholicism by billeting both dragoons and ordinary infantrymen in their homes. The soldiers were instructed to harass and intimidate the occupants, in order to persuade them to either convert to the state religion or emigrate. As mobile mounted infantry, the 14 regiments of dragoons in the French Army of the period were sometimes used for what would now be called internal security duties, and were an effective instrument for persecuting the Huguenots. The application of selective and coercive troop quartering had been initiated by the ''

intendant An intendant (; pt, intendente ; es, intendente ) was, and sometimes still is, a public official, especially in France, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. The intendancy system was a centralizing administrative system developed in France. In ...

'' René de Marillac in Poitou, in 1681. With the permission of the Secretary of State for War François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, Marillac systematically lodged troops with Protestants, in the expectation that existing laws exempting households newly converted to Catholicism from this practice would spur conversions. Billeted troops got so far out of hand that, after a series of reprimands in letters, the Marquis de Louvois was forced to recall Marillac from Poitou. The Marquis himself was to be subsequently blamed for originating the dragonnades but research has established that responsibility rested with more junior officials such as de Marillac, ambitious for royal favour. Louvois did not oppose the policy but was concerned with the negative impact on the discipline of the soldiers involved.Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, Volume 11, page 130.

Outcome

The persecution of Protestants caused outrage in England and created a wave of literature in protest against the inhumane treatment of Huguenots, thousands of whom fled to England to seek asylum. The ''dragonnades'' caused Protestants to flee France, even before the

Edict of Fontainebleau The Edict of Fontainebleau (22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to practice their religion without ...

of 1685 revoked the religious rights granted them by the

. Most Huguenot refugees sought refuge in countries such as

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands ( Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiograph ...

(from where some migrated to the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with ...

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number o ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, and the German territories (notably Brandenburg-Prussia). Smaller numbers also fled to

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...

, the English colonies in North America, or Lutheran Scandinavia. Huguenots also fled to Brazil, where they founded the city of ''Saint-Louis-de-Maragnan'' (present-day São Luís, in the state of

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins a ...

), which is the only Brazilian capital founded by the French. Today among the remnants of the French Huguenot colonization of the city, there is a museum dedicated to the Huguenots, and the place where the Huguenots built a fort has become the city hall, but retains its original name of ''La Ravardière''. On January 17, 1686, Louis XIV claimed that his policies had caused the Protestant population of France to decline from 800,000-900,000 to 1,000–1,500. Though he greatly exaggerated, their numbers did decline significantly. According to Hans J. Hillerbrand, an expert on Protestantism, Huguenot numbers had been steadily declining since the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. The campaign ultimately proved detrimental to France's economy, as many were part of the nascent urban bourgeoisie, and many others possessed skills such as silkweaving, clock-making, silversmithing, and

optometry Optometry is a specialized health care profession that involves examining the eyes and related structures for defects or abnormalities. Optometrists are health care professionals who typically provide comprehensive primary eye care. In the Un ...

References

Bibliography

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External links