It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
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L’Edit de Nantes
The Edict of Nantes, issued on 13 April 1598, by Henry IV of France, granted the Calvinist Protestants of France (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. In the Edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity. The Edict separated civil from religious unity, treated some Protestants for the first time as more than mere schismatics andheretics, and opened a path for secularism and tolerance. In offering general freedom of conscience to individuals, the Edict offered many specific concessions to the Protestants, such as amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights, including the right to work in any field or for the State and to bring grievances directly to the king. It marked the end of the religious wars that had afflicted France during the second half of the 16th century.
The Edict of St. Germain promulgated 36 years before by Catherine de Médici had granted limited tolerance to Huguenots, but was overtaken by events, as it was not formally registered until after the Massacre of Vassy on 1 March 1562, which triggered the first of the French Wars of Religion.
The later revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October 1685 by Louis XIV, the grandson of Henry IV, drove an exodus of Protestants, and increased the hostility of Protestant nations bordering France.
La conjuration d’Amboise, 13-19 mars 1560Description :Les évènements majeurs de la conjuration : assassinat de Pardailhan, assaut desespéré des réformés, capture des troupes huguenotes ; d’après Tortorel et PerrissinAuteur :Hogenberg Frans (1535-1590)
The Amboise conspiracy, also called Tumult of Amboise, was a failed attempt by Huguenots in 1560 to gain power of France by abducting the young king Francis II and arresting Francis, Duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine. It was one of the events directly leading up to the Wars of Religion that divided France from 1562 to 1598.
Cadran solaire multiple de type BloudDescription :2e moitié du 18e siècleAuteur :Bloud Charles (actif 1653-1686?)
Charles Bloud and his brother, based in Dieppe, created ivory sundial. He started to sign his work around 1655, but disappeared after 1685 and the revocation of Edit de Nantes. He and his brother refused to convert to Catholicism.
This sundial is inspired from his work.
François de Beaumont, baron des Adrets
François de Beaumont, baron des Adrets (c. 1512/1513-1587) was a Huguenot leader, notorious for his cruelty; he died a Catholic.
He was born in 1512 or 1513 at the château of La Frette (Isère). During the reign of Henry II of France he served with distinction in the royal army and became colonel of the legions of Dauphiné, Provence and Languedoc. In 1562, however, he joined the Huguenots, not from religious conviction but probably from motives of ambition and personal dislike of the house of Guise.
His campaign against the Catholics in 1562 was eminently successful. In June of that year Des Adrets was master of the greater part of Dauphiné. But his brilliant military qualities were marred by his revolting atrocities. The reprisals he exacted from the Catholics after their massacres of the Huguenots atOrange have left a dark stain upon his name. The garrisons that resisted him were butchered with every circumstance of brutality, and at Montbrison, inForez, he forced eighteen prisoners to precipitate themselves from the top of the keep. Having alienated the affections of the Huguenots by his pride and violence, he entered into communication with the Catholics, and declared himself openly in favor of conciliation.
On 10 January 1563 he was arrested on suspicion by some Huguenot officers and confined in the citadel of Nîmes. He was liberated at the edict of Amboise in the following March, and, distrusted alike by Huguenots and Catholics, retired to the château of La Frette. In 1585,in league with the Englishman Richard Topcliffe,he attacked and ransacked he Abbey of Our Lady of Aiguebelle,Provence, and attempted to destroy it. Unable to do so, he buried all entrances to the Abbey beneath tons of earth and rubble. He died a Catholic at La Frette, on 2 February 1587.
Portrait de Catherine de Parthenay (1554-1631)
Catherine was the heiress to the rich Huguenot Parthenay-Leveque family that originated from the Poitou region. Her tutor, Francois Viete, was the greatest mathematician of his time. At a very early age, she married Charles de Quelennec, the baron of Pont-l’Abbé, who died during the night of the Saint Bartholomew massacre while defending Coligny. A widow at eighteen years old, Catherine was a good match and was considered as one of the most intelligent women of her time. She was courted by René, the youngest son in the Rohan family but Catherine, beautiful as she was, did not accept to marry him until he became the viscount of Rohan and subsequently inherited the fortune of the Rohan family after the death of his eldest brother.
Having become the viscountess of Rohan, Catherine disposed of the main residences of the Rohan family in Brittany : Blain, Josselin and Pontivy and contributed to he extension of protestant churches in these places. Her new husband took up arms as soon as the wars resumed. Catherine and her children found a safe haven in La Rochelle. In 1586, she was widowed a second time ; from then on, she dedicated her life to the upbringing of her children and the support of the Protestant cause in Brittany. In her Parc Soubise and Blain residences, Catherine was the soul of a thriving political, religious and cultural life. She liked to write, and ventured into poetry and tragedy.
As a staunch Huguenot, she mesmerised the defenders of the city of La Rochelle against the armies of Cardinal Richelieu. La Rochelle surrendered in 1628. Catherine was sent to prison and the Blain and Josselin residences were pulled down. Catherine de Parthenay lived through all the wars of religion and died in 1631 in the Parc Soubise residence. She was an active defender of the protestant cause and courageously stood for her ideas and, as such, she set an example for her sons.
Her eldest son, Henri de Royan, became the leader of the Huguenot party after Condé, Coligny and Henri of Navarre. He married Sully’s daughter. He had only one daughter who, by order of the king, was married to a Catholic prince.
Le théologien et réformateur français Jean Calvin (1509-1564). École flamande. Portrait de Jean Calvin jeune (Portrait of Young John Calvin).
Jean Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he published the first edition of his seminal work The Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536.
The edict of Fontainebleau, revocation of the edict of Nantes, 1685.
By the Edict of Fontainebleau, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches, as well as the closing of Protestant schools. This policy made official the persecution already enforced since the dragonnades created in 1681 by the king in order to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism. As a result of the officially sanctioned persecution by the dragoons who were billeted upon prominent Huguenots, a large number of Protestants — estimates range from 210,000 to 900,000 — left France over the next two decades. They sought asylum in England, the United Provinces, Sweden, Switzerland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, the Habsburg’s Holy Roman Empire, South Africa and North America. They left without money, but took with them many skills. In the host nations they established small businesses and their new ideas revitalised indigenous industries.
French map of Guanabara Bay in 1555, by Duval.
France Antarctique was a French colony south of the Equator, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which existed between 1555 and 1567, and had control over the coast from Rio de Janeiro to Cabo Frio. Founded as a haven for the Huguenots, the colony was ultimately destroyed by the Portuguese in 1567.
![Le traite d’Olivier de Serres - édition de 1663 a Rouen.
@credits
Olivier de Serres (1539 – 1619) was a French author and soil scientist whose Théâtre d’Agriculture (1600) was the text book of French agriculture in the 17th century.[1].
Serres was born at Villeneuve-de-Berg, Ardèche. His book was notable for its recommendation to wine growers that they plant 5-6 varieties in their vineyards to balance the risk of a crop failing, and the early advocating of crop rotation. ‘Le théâtre de l’agriculture’ recommends Métayage (Sharecropping) as cash tenants took all the risks so would demand lower rent while hired labour was expensive to manage. Sharecroppers administer themselves and risks are divided with the landlord. Olivier only thought large landowners should take the risk of hiring labourers and running the estate themselves.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mba5mjYCYC1r4iw2yo1_500.jpg)
Le traite d’Olivier de Serres - édition de 1663 a Rouen.
Olivier de Serres (1539 – 1619) was a French author and soil scientist whose Théâtre d’Agriculture (1600) was the text book of French agriculture in the 17th century.[1].
Serres was born at Villeneuve-de-Berg, Ardèche. His book was notable for its recommendation to wine growers that they plant 5-6 varieties in their vineyards to balance the risk of a crop failing, and the early advocating of crop rotation. ‘Le théâtre de l’agriculture’ recommends Métayage (Sharecropping) as cash tenants took all the risks so would demand lower rent while hired labour was expensive to manage. Sharecroppers administer themselves and risks are divided with the landlord. Olivier only thought large landowners should take the risk of hiring labourers and running the estate themselves.
Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy - François Dubois
The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French) in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of Roman Catholic mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), during the French Wars of Religion. The massacre took place six days after the wedding of the king’s sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France). This marriage was an occasion for which many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris.
The massacre began on 23 August 1572 (the eve of the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle), two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the military and political leader of the Huguenots. The king ordered the killing of a group of Huguenot leaders, including Coligny, but the slaughter spread throughout Paris. Lasting several weeks, the massacre expanded outward to other urban centres and the countryside. Modern estimates for the number of dead vary widely, from 5,000 to 30,000.
