The Edict of Nantes was a law that granted religious rights to French Huguenot Protestants. The issuance of the edict ended the thirty-year period of the Wars of Religion in France and marked the beginning of a century of relative peace, known as the "Great Age". The edict was drawn up by order of the French king Henry IV and approved in Nantes (April 13, 1598). Abolished by Louis XIV in 1685.
The Edict of Nantes consisted of 93 articles and 36 secret decrees; the latter were not considered by the parliaments and were not included in their protocols. Its publication was preceded by countless complaints from the Huguenots and lengthy negotiations with them by the king. No sixteenth-century edict in Western Europe granted such extensive tolerance as that of Nantes. Subsequently, he gave reason to accuse the Huguenots of forming a state within a state.
The Edict of Nantes granted full equality to Catholics and Protestants. The first article of the edict introduced Catholic worship wherever it was discontinued. The Catholic clergy were given back all their former rights and estates. Calvinism was tolerated wherever it was before. All the nobles who held the highest judicial positions had the right to perform Calvinistic worship and to admit outsiders to it. In the castles of ordinary nobles, Protestant worship was allowed if the number of Protestants did not exceed 30 people and if the castles were not located in an area where the Catholic owners enjoyed the right of the supreme court.
In cities and villages where the Huguenots were allowed to worship until 1597, this right was restored. Calvinistic worship was formally forbidden in Paris and some cities closed to it on the basis of capitulations; but Protestants were allowed to live there. In all other places, the Huguenots could have churches, bells, schools, and hold public office. For religious reasons, it was forbidden to disinherit relatives, attack Huguenots and persuade their children to convert to Catholicism. All those sentenced to punishment for religious beliefs were pardoned.
The government pledged to help the Huguenots with subsidies for schools and churches. At the same time, the Huguenots were granted a number of privileges of a political, judicial and military nature: they were allowed to convene periodic meetings (consistory, synods), keep deputies at the court to submit petitions and complaints through Sully, Morne and d’Aubigne. In Paris, a judicial chamber (Chambre de l'Edit) was established for the Protestants of Normandy and Brittany, in Castres for the Toulouse district, in Bordeaux and Grenoble - mixed chambers (Chambres miparties), for the Provence and Burgundy Provence.
The exiles were returned to their homeland. In the power of the Huguenots were left for 8 years 200 fortresses and fortified castles that belonged to them until 1597 (places de sûreté); the garrisons were kept here at the expense of the king, and the chiefs were subordinate to the Huguenots. The main fortresses were: La Rochelle, Saumur and Montauban. The Pope called the Edict of Nantes impious. The Huguenots demanded even more, interpreting the edict in terms of expanding its content.
Henry IV persuaded the parliaments with great tact to enter the edict into their minutes; only the Rouen parliament persisted until 1609. Having fastened the edict with a large state seal, Henry called it ʼʼeternal and irrevocableʼʼ, protected it from misinterpretations, sometimes limiting it or expanding it temporarily, especially in relation to the term of the fortresses owned by the Huguenots.
Regulations
The Edict of Nantes consisted of 93 articles and 36 secret decrees; the latter were not considered by the parliaments and were not included in their protocols. Its publication was preceded by countless complaints from the Huguenots and lengthy negotiations with them by the king. No 16th-century edict in Western Europe granted such extensive religious tolerance as that of Nantes. Subsequently, he gave reason to accuse the Huguenots of forming a state within a state.
The Edict of Nantes granted full equality to Catholics and Protestants. The first article of the edict consigned to oblivion the events of the Wars of Religion and forbade any mention of them.
I. ... the memory of everything that happened on both sides from the beginning of March 1585 until our coronation and during other previous troubles will be blotted out as if nothing had happened. Neither our Attorneys General nor any other person, public or private, will ever be allowed to mention this for any reason...
- Edict of Nantes
The third article of the edict introduced Catholic worship wherever it was discontinued. At the same time, in those cities and villages where the Huguenots were allowed to worship until 1597, this right was restored.
III. We command that the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion be restored in all places of our kingdom ... where its administration was interrupted and let it be practiced peacefully and freely without any troubles and obstacles.
In order not to give any cause for confusion and strife among our subjects, we have allowed and allow those professing the so-called reformed religion to live and dwell in all the cities and places of our kingdom and their subordinate areas without persecution and compulsion to do anything in the matter of religion contrary to their conscience. ; they will not be searched on this occasion in the houses and places where they wish to live ...
- Edict of Nantes
The Catholic clergy were given back all their former rights and estates. Calvinism was tolerated wherever it was before. All the nobles who held the highest judicial positions had the right to perform Calvinistic worship and to admit outsiders to it. In the castles of ordinary nobles, Protestant worship was allowed if the number of Protestants did not exceed 30 people and if the castles were not located in an area where the Catholic owners enjoyed the right of the supreme court.
Calvinist worship was formally banned in Paris and some cities closed to it on the basis of earlier capitulations; but Protestants were allowed to live there. In all other places, the Huguenots could have churches, bells, schools, and hold public office. It was forbidden for religious reasons to disinherit relatives, attack the Huguenots and persuade their children to convert to Catholicism. All those sentenced to punishment for religious beliefs were pardoned.
The government pledged to help the Huguenots with subsidies for schools and churches. In addition, the Huguenots were granted a number of privileges of a political, judicial and military nature: they were allowed to convene periodic meetings (consistory, synods), keep deputies at the court to submit petitions and complaints through Sully, Morne and d'Aubigne. In Paris, a judicial chamber was established ( Chambre de l'Edit) for the Protestants of Normandy and Brittany, in Castres - for the Toulouse district, in Bordeaux and Grenoble - mixed chambers ( Chambres miparties), for Provence and Burgundy Protestants.
Exiles were allowed to return to their homeland. In the power of the Huguenots were left for 8 years 200 fortresses and fortified castles that belonged to them until 1597 (places de sûreté - places of safety); the garrisons were kept here at the expense of the king, and the chiefs were subordinate to the Huguenots. The main fortresses were: La Rochelle, Saumur and Montauban. The king directly told the Huguenot deputation that the fortresses would be useful to them in the event of a possible cancellation of the Edict of Nantes by his successors ...
The Pope called the Edict of Nantes impious. The Huguenots demanded even more, interpreting the edict in terms of expanding its content.
Henry IV persuaded the parliaments with great tact to enter the edict into their minutes; only Rouen parliament persisted until 1609. Having sealed the edict with a large state seal, Henry called it “eternal and irrevocable”, protected it from misinterpretations, sometimes limiting it or expanding it temporarily, especially in relation to the term of the fortresses belonging to the Huguenots.
Under Louis XIII
Under the accession of Louis XIII, the regency approved the Edict of Nantes, stating that it must be "observed inviolably." Although Richelieu robbed the Protestant Party of its political influence, the principle of religious tolerance remained in force.
In 1629 in Ala, after the end of the local war with the Huguenots, was published Edict of Nîmes who repeated the articles of the Edict of Nantes. After the death of Louis XIII, a declaration was issued (July 8, 1643), in which the Protestants were granted free and unlimited practice of their religion and the Edict of Nantes was approved, but with the caveat: "as far as it turned out to be necessary." Louis XIV declared in a declaration on May 21, 1652: "I wish that the Huguenots do not cease completely to use the Edict of Nantes."
Cancel
Reluctantly submitting to the Edict of Nantes, the Catholic clergy under Louis XIV tried by all means to destroy it or paralyze its significance. Since 1661, religious persecution resumed. In the 9th article of the Edict of Nantes, worship was allowed in those places where it was performed in 1596 and 1597. On this basis, Catholics began to destroy Protestant churches in other places. On April 2, 1666, Louis issued a declaration in which the principle of freedom, recognized by the Edict of Nantes, was destroyed. October 17, 1685 Louis XIV signed
Apart from the war, apart from Versailles and the extraordinary splendor with which the great king, the model of monarchs, was surrounded, Louis dealt a blow to the Colbert system by persecuting the Protestants. The Edict of Nantes was not the result of the establishment of the principle of religious tolerance, but was only a temporary deal: exhausted by strife, the Catholic majority had to make this concession to the king, who, to please him, turned from a Protestant into a Catholic and had to show his fellow believers that he, in his apostasy, did not left them, but negotiated extremely favorable conditions for them, which the Gentiles did not use anywhere in Europe. Consequently, the French Protestants, who owed their position to a combination of special circumstances, had to expect that with a change in these circumstances their position would also change. Happiness continued to favor them; first, the unrest in the infancy of Louis XIII, then the government of Richelieu: although the cardinal of the Roman Church dealt them a strong blow, he did not touch their essential rights, because his calculations did not include the excitation of a strong internal struggle when France was occupied with an important external struggle, but the first minister personally, there were already so many internal enemies more dangerous than the Protestants; finally, the unrest in the infancy of Louis XIV also made it impossible to think about the Protestants. With the end of the Fronde, the golden time for the Protestants ended, especially when Louis entered into independent government, provided with relative internal calm by the weariness of all classes of the population from unrest.
Louis could not favorably treat people who so sharply violated state unity, who, by their existence in the state, showed the falsity of the famous expression: "The state is me." Trying to help the Stuarts to break the English constitution by overthrowing Protestantism and raising Catholicism, waging a fierce struggle with Protestant Holland, with her stadtholder, the hero of Protestantism, the most Christian king should have known that part of his subjects could not wish him success, should have known that the Protestants of different countries are in a dangerous relationship and, on occasion, are ready to help each other even in an obvious way; if Louis, in his actions against the majority of the English people, could count on the sympathy and help of the Catholic minority, he must naturally have concluded that the English majority would always find sympathy and help in the French Protestant minority. It is clear that with such an attitude towards his Protestant subjects, Louis was easily accessible to all suggestions about the need and obligation to take measures to destroy heresy, he was all the more accessible to such suggestions because the matter seemed easy: the Protestants lost their leaders in the upper strata of society, Protestantism became this time philistine faith and in this meaning could only find dislike and contempt among the people surrounding the king.
At first, Louis did not think about the obvious persecution of Protestants, about the destruction of the Edict of Nantes: he wanted to reduce the number of Protestants, showering rewards on those who converted to Catholicism, and denying any mercy to those who remained in heresy. But the clergy were not satisfied with this mode of action: Bossuet called wicked those who wanted the sovereign to spare heretics. Before the persecution, restrictions began: the Protestants were forbidden to convene national synods, which used to happen every three years, they were ordered to confine themselves to provincial synods; it was forbidden for Protestants who converted to Catholicism to convert again to Protestantism; it is forbidden for Catholic clerics to convert to Protestantism, and by depriving the French of the right to choose between two confessions, the basis of the Edict of Nantes was violated. They began to hamper the access of Protestants to the workshops; decided that the children of Protestants, boys from 14, and girls from 12, could change their confession without the consent of their parents and leave the latter, who, however, were obliged to give for their maintenance; Protestants were not allowed to open high schools. Then a significant number of Protestant families left France. Colbert intervened, exposed the harm these measures against the Protestants had for the state, for the people's industry, and for a time managed to put a stop to the embarrassing regulations. But from 1674 they resumed. In order to advance the cause of the conversion of heretics, the king appointed significant sums for distribution to the new converts. In addition to political considerations, the king now began to be guided by religious zeal, which intensified in him under the influence of the famous Maintenon.
The mistress of King Montespan brought him closer to the poor widow left behind by the clownish poet Scarron. The widow Scarron was the governess of the by-children of Louis by Montespan. At first, Scarron did not like the king, who found her very ceremonial and pedantic; but then, little by little, he began to find pleasure in the company of an intelligent, calm, decent, moral, pious, elderly woman, but who retained her beauty. The news of the appearance aroused curiosity, the contrast with Montespan, which was already boring with its impetuosity, strengthened the disposition. Louis began to court, and then a constantly strong rebuff, but not a final rejection, turned the inclination into a passion. The pupils of Scarron were declared the legitimate children of the king and presented to the queen, and their governess received the title of Marquise of Maintenon. This was in 1675, and in 1679 Maintenon wrote: “The king confesses his weaknesses, repents of his mistakes; he was seriously thinking about the conversion of heretics, and will soon be working hard on it.
Marquise Maintenon. Portrait by P. Mignard, ca. 1694
Some government officials demanded that it be necessary to use predominantly moral means against Protestants, to try first of all to improve morals and education in the lower strata of the Catholic clergy, which cannot compete with Protestant pastors; in vain they imagined that Protestantism is a fortress that cannot be taken by storm, but must be gradually undermined; people of opposite convictions, who argued that it was necessary to compel heretics to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, gained the upper hand. 22 Protestant churches were destroyed in 1679; judicial chambers composed of a mixture of Catholics and Protestants were destroyed; all Protestant meetings for ecclesiastical business are prohibited without royal permission and the presence of a royal commissioner; it is forbidden for Protestants to be midwives; Protestants are prohibited from appointing to official positions, but Protestants who wish to convert to Catholicism are allowed three years without paying debts; Marriages between Catholics and Protestants are prohibited. The Minister of War, Louvois, wanted to take the matter of converting heretics into his own hands, and he ordered that they be placed in Protestant houses wait cavalry. Encouraged by quartermasters and officials, instigated by zealous Catholics, the soldiers began to treat their masters as if they were enemies; in order to get rid of the stay, a lot of Protestants converted to Catholicism, a lot of others were going to leave France; but here Colbert intervened, and for the last time the king listened to his old minister: the conversion of heretics was stopped.
But spiritual and secular zealots pointed out to the king how dangerous the cessation of strict measures was: Protestants who had converted to Catholicism began to return to their former heresy in droves as soon as they got rid of the camp. Maintenon wrote in 1681: “The king begins to seriously think about saving himself and his subjects. If God saves it for us, there will be only one religion in France. This is Louvois' desire, and I think he is more zealous in this regard than Colbert, who thinks only of his finances and almost never thinks of religion." In the same year it was decreed that the children of Protestants may convert to Catholicism against the will of their parents, not from the age of 12 or 14, as was previously decreed, but from the age of seven. The expulsion of Protestants from France began to take place on the most extensive scale, in spite of the vigilant supervision arranged by the government on the frontiers; however, the pastors were not detained, on the contrary, they were forced to move out. Colbert could no longer defend the Protestants. Enemies went so far as to accuse him of pernicious plans, and these accusations had an impact on the king, on his relationship with the minister. In 1683, Colbert died 63 years old with bitter reproaches to man and without hope in God. He said before his death: “If I had done as much for God as I did for this man (Louis), then I would have been saved ten times, and now I don’t know what will happen to me.” The famous minister was to be buried at night for fear that the people would not offend his remains; the crowd was accustomed to thinking that every minister of finance was concerned only with squeezing money out of the people by all means, and all the burdens of recent times were attributed to Colbert.
After the death of Colbert, the ministries of maritime, trade, court and church affairs passed to his son, Seignela, a young man, very lively, capable, well prepared, but not having paternal seriousness; finances received Pelletier, who was recommended to Louis as a soft man, able, like wax, to take whatever imprint the king would like to give him. The late Colbert's brother, Colbert de Croissy, was in charge of foreign affairs. Louvois hurried to join the post of Minister of War with the management of public institutions and art works in general, for the king's passion for buildings gave this position great importance. Louvois, of course, tried to please this passion, as a result of which the cost of buildings, which reached 6 million under Colbert in 1682, increased to 15 million in 1686.
Soon the council of ministers of Louis XIV received a new active member: it was the Marquise de Maintenon. In the year of Colbert's death, Queen Maria Theresa also died, in her simplicity she completely disappeared among the brilliant female figures that filled the court of the great king. The following year, 1684, Louis secretly married Maintenon, who was several years older than him (she was under 50 years old). All influences now had to give way to the influence of Maintenon. The king was no longer ashamed of his affection and worked with the ministers in her room; when a question was difficult to resolve, the king said: “Let us consult with reason,” and, turning to Maintenon, he asked her: “What does your Solidity (Votre Solidite) think about this?” It is easy to understand that the Protestant question could be decided by "her solidity" not in favor of the Edict of Nantes. In the year of the royal marriage on the Maintenon, we already see strong measures against the Protestants: their churches were closed incessantly under the most empty pretexts, then Protestants are forbidden to be lawyers and doctors, keepers of printing houses and bookstores, it is forbidden to preach and write against Catholicism; Protestants in those areas where churches were destroyed are forbidden to attend worship in those areas where it was still ongoing. To hasten the conversion of the Protestants, Louvois advised the king show them the army. The army was shown and made a strong impression: seeing red uniforms and high hats of dragoons, Protestant workshops and entire cities were sent to the quartermasters with a request to be accepted into the bosom of the Catholic Church; who were in no hurry to convert, they were subjected to all sorts of oppression and torment, by the way, such a torture was invented: the soldiers did not let the unfortunate sleep for whole weeks. Other means were also used: the agents of the government admitted that the distribution of money attracted many souls to the Church.
Ludovic, from whom details were hidden and only results were presented, was delighted. Maintenon wrote: "There is not a single courier who would not please the king with the news of the conversion of Protestants by the thousands"; they did not care about the sincerity of the appeal. “If the fathers pretend, then the children will at least be Catholics,” wrote Maintenon. Finally, in 1685, it was decided to repeal the Edict of Nantes. The heir to the throne presented that the repeal of the edict was dangerous: Protestants might take up arms, but if this did not follow, many of them would leave the state, which would damage trade and industry. The king replied that against the rebels he had an army and good generals; material interests are not worth considering in comparison with the benefits of the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, which will restore religion to its brilliance, peace to the state, authorities all its rights.
The Edict of Nantes was destroyed, and the aged Chancellor Le Tellier, one of the most zealous instigators of persecution, when signing the annihilation of the edict, exclaimed: “Now let your servant go, Master!” As a result of the destruction of the edict, all Protestant churches were destroyed; it is forbidden to gather for worship in private homes or anywhere under pain of arrest and deprivation of property; commanded all Protestant pastors to leave France within 15 days; private schools for Protestant children are banned; children born to Protestants will be baptized by parish priests and brought up in the Catholic faith; again prohibited Protestants from leaving France on pain of galleys for men, arrest and confiscation of property for women. However, the Protestants were promised that they would not be bothered about religion.
Thanks to this promise, the destruction of the Edict of Nantes was accepted by the Protestants more as a boon than as a final blow: at least they got rid of oppression and could calmly end their days in the faith of their fathers; the new converts began to repent and stopped going to Mass. Then the Catholic zealots cried out about the error of the government, and Louvois hastened to reassure them, ordering them to act as before. “His Majesty is pleased,” he wrote, “so that people who do not want to profess the same religion with him experience extreme severity: soldiers are allowed to live very loose." The soldiers began to live very freely, and the Protestants experienced extreme severity: they used roasting of the feet and other tortures to convert them; mothers were tied to beds, and their babies were tormented in front of them in the pangs of hunger. At this time, Chancellor Le Tellier dies, and in his funeral speech, Bossuet spreads about the piety of Louis, whom he calls the new Constantine, the new Theodosius, the new Charlemagne, praises him for the affirmation of faith, for the extermination of heretics.
All classes and chambers, academies, universities compete in praise of the new Constantine: medals represent the king, crowned with religion for the return of two million Calvinists to the bosom of the Church; statues are erected to the "exterminator of heresy." Every writer considers it his duty to pay tribute to Louis "for the greatest and most beautiful deed that has ever been conceived and accomplished." In Paris and Versailles, there are enthusiastic praises and jubilations, and crowds of pilgrims, beggars, itinerant artisans of both sexes make their way to the borders: all these are Protestants, this is “the flight of Israel from Egypt”; some of them, on the darkest winter nights, decide to sail across the Atlantic Ocean or the English Channel in fragile ships in order to reach the shores of a selfishly hospitable England, eager to enjoy the fruits of their art. Up to 250,000 Protestants left their homeland in this way; the industrial cities of France became impoverished, deprived of industrious and skillful hands, the cities of England, Holland and Brandenburg became rich from French settlers.
Svyatoslav Gorbunov In recent days, more and more often we have to observe a growing misunderstanding between people, which is turning before our eyes into a genuine tragedy of morals. One way or another, conflicts of worldviews, attracting witnesses to the events of the past and acquired by the will of fate and circumstances the most unreasonable - blind and uncompromising, intolerant - form, manifest themselves within the walls of academic institutions, and on the stairs of scientific libraries, and in cafeterias, on the streets, even in private conversations of close people. Perhaps such an aggravation of relations will someday be considered a special sign of our time, but I would like to hope that we will still be remembered by posterity for something else. Walking on a hot June day through the ancient galleries of the Louvre and discussing the fate of the modern world, I tried to remember whether there was a place for real tolerance in ancient history. Has history been built only on violence and endless conflicts? At some point, two pictures caught my eye, similar to each other, like reflections in a mirror. On the canvases by Frans Pourbus the Younger (Frans Pourbus II) was depicted Henry IV of Navarre - the good old King Henri (le bon roi Henry)
as the French still call it. And this is what seemed remarkable to me: in both portraits the king is depicted strikingly similar, the only difference is in the color of the veil in the background and in the fact that in one of the paintings Heinrich appears before the viewer in military armor, and in the other - in a modest “civilian”. Such a dualism could not but occupy my mind, and my memory immediately gave out the formula familiar from numerous novels and historical books: "King by right of conquest and by right of birth, conciliator of France." It was this conciliatory meaning of the figure of King Henry that seemed to me especially significant in the context of the very intolerance that is manifesting itself today, which I thought about at that time. 
Frans Pourbus the Younger. Portrait of Henry of Navarre in armor. 1610. Louvre, Paris Probably not a single professional historian, and just a person familiar with the history of France in the 16th century, will doubt that the role that fell to Henry's lot was very difficult. Society heated up to the limit, destructive religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots tore the country apart, flaring up with renewed vigor here and there. Against this background, the well-known tragedy of St. Bartholomew's Night was only a vivid, but short-lived episode of those waves of violence that again and again overwhelmed the territory of a once completely peaceful state. Religious conflict, political instability, the opposition of the Catholic League, led by Guises, the royal court and the Protestants, who gained considerable strength, turned the “pearl of Europe”, as Erasmus of Rotterdam once spoke of France, into an eternally flaming camp of violence and general enmity. 
Edict of Nantes. Revision of the document presented to the Parlement of Paris in February 1599. National Archives of France The end of this enmity, which exhausted the people and destroyed the best representatives of the state, could only be put to rest by Henry IV, who issued the famous conciliatory Edict of Nantes in 1598. Being a politically very experienced and reasonable person, the king understood that it was impossible to resolve the contradictions that had accumulated and settled in the souls of people by force of arms. At least, they tried to do this more than once before him, but with each such attempt, the enmity only intensified. Religion mixed with politics, and politics became ideology. The most important link that could once again bind the nation was tolerance - a simple understanding of universal human unity, which was so lacking for both ordinary people and representatives of the upper classes. Henry himself, as you know, treated issues of religious ideology in a very utilitarian way: suffice it to recall that for the sake of the highest expediency (and sometimes just for the sake of saving his life), he changed his confessional affiliation several times, becoming either a Catholic or a Huguenot. The words attributed to him, “Paris is worth a mass,” referring to the period of accession to the throne and the next conversion to the Catholic faith, have become a proverb among the people (although Henry, apparently, never said these words). 
Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569−1622).
Portrait of Henry IV. 1610. Louvre, Paris In any case, it is difficult to condemn Heinrich for such “inconsistency” from the position of today, if we remember that the basis of his “deal with conscience” was the desire for peace, for which, like a young man who had gone on a long voyage, the country so yearned . And, of course, the new king, who managed to fight on the side of different parties, understood that only tolerance and relative equality could become a guarantee of peace.
The result was the Edict of Nantes, a remarkable historical document, so different in style from all other conciliatory treaties that preceded it. For more than a century, his text has attracted the attention of researchers from all over the world. Many eminent historians, sociologists and religious scholars devoted their analysis to his analysis, and almost all of them agree on one thing: it was the Edict of Nantes - the edict of tolerance - that put an end to the bloody era of religious wars and again directed the country to the path of prosperity.
But still, what was Heinrich's program? How could he rid society of decades of hatred and prejudice? We find the answer in the very text of the edict, which has 93 general articles and 36 more secret decrees. And the most remarkable in the context of the present day seems to me the very first article of the historical document, which reads: “ BeforeTotal memory both everyone, Whathappened With toy And With another sides With start Martha 1585 of the year before onshego coronation And V flow othergih previous to that unrest, will blotted out, How as if NothingNot happened. Neither our generalnym prosecutors, neither otherwise persons, thstate And private, Not willallowed never And neither By what about mention about this or presledovat judicial in order V what wouldThat neither was tribunals And jurisdictionI"(cited from: Reader on the history of the Middle Ages. M., 1950. T. 3. S. 173). Thus, the memory of everything that had divided French society for almost the entire previous century was “erased”. No one was officially allowed to mention the past and interpret the tragedies that had occurred within the framework of the current day, so as not to revive the conflicts extinguished by the edict. And this decision seems to be very wise from the standpoint of modernity. After all, as we all know, an old grudge can always be used as a powerful weapon for future conflict. Like a catalyst for a chemical process, it acts, inflamed accidentally or purposefully by evil or narrow-minded minds, with which the world is always full. And only its blissful oblivion can prevent this "armed conflict". And it is no coincidence that this oblivion is referred to in the edict with the addition of “above all” (premièrement). Edict beforeTotal cleared the minds and thereby cooled the passions. Perhaps this was precisely its hidden effectiveness.
The remaining articles of the edict, both the general and the secret part of it, deal with particular issues. Thus, Catholic worship was introduced wherever it was stopped as a result of the war, the Reformed religion ceased to be considered criminal, and no one was allowed to persecute Calvinists, wherever they lived. Of course, it is a mistake to believe that the document established complete equality between confessions. So, the Reformed religion was not allowed to the court, Protestant meetings, worship in Paris and other important lands for the king were banned. But his main motive - freedom of conscience, religion and forgetting the old strife for the sake of the coming world - was undoubtedly the most important and expensive part of the royal will.
It is not surprising that initially the society remained dissatisfied with the provisions of the issued document. The Catholics were not satisfied with the wide concessions to the Protestants, the Protestants, on the contrary, saw in him insufficient support for their rights, but the main goal - the reconciliation of the nation based on freedom - was carried out by him. And now, according to the edict signed in April 1598 under Nantes, for the first time in many decades, the long-awaited and blissful peace spread over France, which became the basis for the development of society and the state.
Later, the era of the reign of Henry IV and the actions of the Edict of Nantes, the French will call "the good age in the history of France." The basis of this era can be considered harmony within society, which is always the most important element of human development. And even the political drama at La Rochelle in 1627-1628 was perceived, probably, already in a completely different way, as part of something completely alien, unlike the internal hostility of the last century.
In fact, the effect of the Edict of Nantes continued until the reign of Louis XIV, who was a zealous and consistent Catholic. In 1661, when its importance began to diminish, the persecution of Protestants resumed in the country, and with its complete abolition in 1685, France lost several hundred thousand people due to emigration, many of whom were the real flower of their country.
And yet, the memory of the age of calm, of King Henry and that fateful edict has survived to this day, because it was thanks to the foundations of tolerance that society was able to restore its position and forget about the nightmare of internal strife and wars for at least one century. That is why the words of an old French song glorifying the peaceful times of Henry sound natural and no longer so sarcastic: « Vive Henry Quatre! Vive ce roi vaillant!.. «
Perhaps our modern society will someday have to take a similar reconciliatory step, leaving behind all strife and clashes - the most important step of tolerance, opening the way to an era of genuine social, civilizational and moral development.
