Introduction
Philippians 1:29 says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake…” This is the story and the testimony of the group of Christians that we will study today, the French Huguenots. They not only believed in Christ, but suffered, and suffered greatly for His sake. This was their calling in the providence of God.
The Huguenots have a vast legacy, and yet little is known or remembered about them today. How many of you have heard of the French Huguenots? One reason is that there really aren’t that many good accessible resources available to learn about them. What is said about them in church history books typically is not much. One reason is because their persecution was so great, and they were dispersed out of France into other cultures and societies. So who were they?
Identity
The French Huguenots is just the name for the French Protestants during the reformation era who were reformed in their doctrine, worship, and practice. There are a few different theories as to where the name Huguenot comes from and what it means, but we are not exactly sure as to its origins.
So how did the reformation come to France? There are a few different streams through which reformation ideas entered the French world. One stream was through the writings of Martin Luther. With the invention of the printing press, Luther’s writings were published in France, as they were in many other places, and became wildly popular. Luther’s works were banned, but as happens when you ban something good, it only increased the popularity.
But more than Luther, it was John Calvin that influenced and shaped reform in France after Luther’s writings. John Calvin was of course a Frenchman, but spent his adult life and ministry mainly in Geneva, Switzerland. But Calvin always had France in his heart and mind and wrote to them and helped them and sent them pastors as best as he could from Geneva.
But, before Calvin and Luther, there was another stream of influence which is particularly upstream of the French Huguenot movement. There was a French Roman Catholic Priest who was a professor at the University of Paris. His name was Jacque Lafay.
Jacque Lafay was a devout Roman Catholic who was stirred to write a work about the saints, but to do so beginning with the saints of the Bible. So he went into the basement library at the University of Paris and began to read the Scriptures. This is so often the reformation recipe – a professor starts to read and study the Scriptures. Well, while he studied the Scriptures he was converted, and from this point he taught reformation ideas there at the University of Paris, including the doctrine of justification by faith. He would go on to translate the New Testament and a rich donor had them published and distributed as well as commentaries that he wrote on the Scriptures which very much put forth reformation doctrines.
General Outline
Keep Lafay in mind. Well during this time, the Queen of Navarre was Marguerite, and she was the sister of Francis I. Marguerite would often host special guests to lecture for special events for the ladies of her court, and one day she invited Professor Lafay to come and lecture. Well, Lafay went and preached a gospel message and Marguerite was converted to the protestant faith along with Anne Boleyn, Queen of England. As far as men can tell, Marguerite was genuinely and amazingly converted by the Spirit of God and used her authority to provide a safe haven and protection to protestants during the religious upheaval and wars that would break out in her time, including protecting Lafay late into his life. Keep Marguerite in mind, she will be important.
Well during this time, Calvin was already in Geneva, but it was the publishing of the first edition of his institutes in 1536 that began to give him influence back in France. And Calvin will play an important role from afar for the Huguenots.
Now, the thing about the Huguenots is that they were not just the French Protestants. In other words, “Huguenot” was not just a religious term, it was also a political term. That is to say that the Huguenots were also a political or military movement as well. Not every Huguenot fought of course, but there was a movement of armed self-defense and political action that is marked among them. Many historians will talk about the “French wars of religion,” which is essentially the Roman Catholic establishment and the French Huguenots fighting battles against one another. And as you can imagine when you look back on wars in history, they are always messy and so you will find things we would disagree with and things we would agree on. Just as Luther went to war with Rome simply by his words, the Huguenots went to war with more than words.
One such event took place in 1534, and it is known as the Affair of the Placards. A Placard is simply a little card-like document with writing or cartoons on it. And the protestants made some placards against Rome, and not only posted them in public, but they were able to breach security all the way to the bed chamber of Francis I and place one there, which obviously shook him. And did not help relations between Protestants and Catholics.
Well, it was just a couple years later in 1536 that protestants were pronounced as heretics in France and the King of France called for their executions. This of course did not stop the spread of the truth of the gospel and protestant fervor as the king wished it did.
A few years later around 1540 Francis I came to the throne in France. And do you remember who his sister was? His sister was Marguerite of Navarre – a protestant convert! Francis I despised the protestants, but his sister was one, and so he was not as fierce against them as others who would come after him. This soft spot allowed protestantism to continue to increase in France.
In 1547 his son, Henry II, rose to the throne and he sought to persecute the protestants. He imprisoned them, burned them at the stake, and even cut out their tongues to silence them from singing the Psalms as they were persecuted. The Huguenots were marked by their fervent bold Psalm singing. Psalm 68 and the particular tune they sung it to was the soundtrack of the French Reformation, and it was so hated by the Roman authorities that the singing and even the humming of the tune of Psalm 68 was outlawed.
Well, Henry II married Catherine De Medici who was a fierce papist, as all of the Medici house was vicious and cruel against protestants. This obviously did not help.
Things escalated in 1559 when a no tolerance policy was encoded into law which prohibited all protestant worship in France. This was the same year in which the first French Huguenot Synod was held.
Also in 1559, there was an attempt to replace the Roman Catholic Guises, who were regents with the Huguenot friendly house of Bourbons, Price of Conde. This plan failed. But you can see how these actions not only made the Roman Catholic magistrates religiously opposed to the Huguenots, but also politically fearful of them. Paranoid maybe even of their own lives.
Well, after this no tolerance policy was made in 1559, the Huguenots, in 1560, petitioned the king for tolerance and threatened revolt if persecution continued.
Tolerance was not granted and in 1562 a group of Huguenot worshippers were massacred to mark a serious turning up of the heat.
In response, the Huguenots signed a manifesto saying that they have been forced to take up arms.
Now, remember Marguerite, Queen of Navarre? She had a daughter named Jean De Albrecht. Jean De Albrecht embraced the protestant faith, and even as a queen would suffer persecution. Her husband, Antoine, was a protestant, but then he converted to Rome. A heartbreaking tragedy.
Well, the pope ends up denouncing Jean De Albrecht as a heretic. The call for her to come to Rome was posted in Rome, but when she heard of it, she said Rome was too far away for her to read what it said.
Jean De Albrecht had a son named Henry who would become a military leader of the Huguenots. Now, the main leader of the Huguenot military movement was a man named Admiral Coligny. And he will be important in this story.
So the King of France and his wife Catherine De Medici made an offer to Jean De Albrecht’s son, offering Catherine De Medici’s daughter in marriage to Henry in Paris where he would become an heir to the throne. The only problem is that Henry was Protestant and Catherine’s daughter Margaret was Roman Catholic.
Jean De Albrecht was opposed to this marriage, but Admiral Coligny was intrigued by this offer, and thought that this might be a good thing, as often in those days royal marriages were made in order to form peace, alliances, and treaties. So he thought this could be a good thing for the cause of the Huguenots.
So they go to France to meet with the King and the Medici’s, and Admiral Coligny faithfully preaches the gospel to the King of France. The King of France faked interest in it and said that even their daughter would be open to the protestant faith, but this was a lie, as was later shown, in order to secure Coligny’s support of the marriage and hopefully Jean De Albrecht’s.
The King and Queen also secured the Pope’s blessing on the marriage. Now how did they do this? They did so by secretly revealing to him their deceitful plot that they planned to massacre the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s day, just after the proposed wedding.
Well, Jean De Albrecht was not so easily fooled and she still urged against the wedding. But before the wedding, she became ill and died. Some believe that she was poisoned by the Medicis.
With the death of his mother, Henry was now King of Navarre and went forward to Paris for the wedding. There were thousands of protestants in attendance in Paris.
As soon as the wedding ended, Margaret (Medici’s daughter) attended high mass. While she was in mass, Coligny was shot in the street and then stabbed. But he did not die.
This was 1572, and while all the attendees were in Paris, just a few days after the wedding, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, were the evil events of what is known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
On St. Bartholomew’s Day, the papists were told to hang white cloths out of their windows in Paris while the unsuspecting Huguenots would be slaughtered that night.
It is estimated that 10,000 Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris that night, and 70,000 throughout France.
It was also on this night of St. Bartholomew’s Day, during the massacre when Admiral Coligny met his end. He was in his chambers recovering from wounds and began to hear the commotion outside in the streets. Men began to break into his quarters and he told the men with him to flee, for his end was now here and he had been prepared to die. He got on his knees in worship as the Roman Catholic soldiers burst into the room and finished him off, thrusting a sword through his heart. They threw his body out of the window into the streets, and the king came to ensure that it was Coligny and pronounced him dead. But this was not enough. They cut off his head and sent it to the queen. Coligny died a nobel martyr’s death in the end and in faithful endurance in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well what was the response to this massacre? The pope celebrated the massacre with a high mass and sent gifts to the French royals.
At first, Henry, son of Jean De Albrecht, led Huguenot forces against Roman Catholic forces in these religious wars, as a rightful magistrate.
But then, a few years later, the King of France died, which meant that Henry, the Son of Jean De Albrecht, who married Margaret of the Medici house, was next in line to be king of France. But as a protestant he was opposed by many of the French, which would have made it difficult to rule, and dangerous. So, he tragically converted to Rome, stating, “Paris is worth a mass.” He gained the world, but lost his soul.
Now, when he became king, he was now Henry IV and he did issue the edict of Nantes, which was an act of toleration toward protestants. This lasted for a few years until he was assassinated in 1610 and Louis 14th became king and began persecuting Huguenots again. Louis revoked the edict of Nantes, required protestant children to be educated by Roman Catholics and the Huguenots began to flee in great numbers out of France. Thus France rejected the reformation. Some say the Huguenots were 10% of the French population. The Huguenots fled to many different places like England, the American colonies, particularly the Carolinas, Florida, and South Africa. Historians say that in this, France lost its soul and never recovered.
Suffering and Persecution
So what do we learn from the French Huguenots? What stands out the most is their suffering and persecution. There are many stories which could be told of their faithful endurance under severe testing and trial, as it was called of them not only to believe in the gospel of Jesus, but to suffer also for His name.
Industry
The other thing about the French Huguenots is that they were remarkably industrious people. They were hard workers who contributed lots of work and industry among their people. They lived out the protestant work ethic, that whatever you do is your vocation before God, and so do it well, whether you are a blacksmith, a shoemaker, a construction worker, a plumber, or whatever. And when the Huguenots were so persecuted that they fled France it brought economic devastation to France while bringing good industry to everywhere else they went. France rejected the reformation and suffered in more ways than one.
Political Theory
We should also consider and learn from their political theory, which is an important part of the Huguenot story.
In 1559 when the Huguenots began to take up armed resistance, Calvin wrote to them and urged them not to do so. So Calvin’s political theory was different from the Huguenots. Calvin wrote this to the Huguenots, “It would be better for all of us to perish at once than to expose the name of Christianity and the gospel to such shame. If one drop of blood is shed, France will be drenched in rivers of blood.” Calvin was right.
Calvin certainly believed in the doctrine of the lesser magistrate interposing between tyrants and subjects, and believed there was a proper way to resist tyrants. But he believed certain requirements were to be met in order to do this.
Calvin believed armed revolt required a lesser magistrate to lead it. This comes from his view that a government that exists comes from God, per Romans 13, and by their existence shows they are from God and are to be submitted to. A government’s existence was its own right to rule.
The Huguenots on the other hand believed the government came from the people and it existed to protect the liberties of the people, and when it did not, they were not only allowed but obligated to resist and overthrow it with or without the aid and leadership of a lesser magistrate.
Their political theory had great influence and effect. Samuel Rutherford in “Lex Rex” would articulate essentially the same thing, that the law is king, denying the divine right of kings to rule.
John Adams quoted Huguenot writers in his defense of American Independence.
Legacy
The legacy of the Huguenots is also seen in the quality of their descendants in their dispersion. Notable Huguenot descendants include Southern American Presbyterian R. L. Dabney, and Americans Paul Revere and Davy Crocket, among others.
Practices
Finally, their legacy continues in their theology and worship practices. They were reformed, predestinarians, sola scripturists, and presbyterian (which we are not). They practiced exclusive acapella Psalm singing, and even used leavened bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper. They were not always perfect in their execution, nor are we always in agreement with their beliefs, but they are our brothers and forebears in the faith and we thank God for them, remember their story, and pray that God would grant us such steadfastness and courage as they when they suffered for the sake of Christ.
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