A migration of people, true liberals, who would not show loyalty to the Church of Rome. So they fled in all directions, taking with them the cream of the French people. The Huguenots have never been a party to evil deeds. All these people wanted was religious freedom in the 16th Century.

They migrated to Holland, Belgique, England, Ireland, Austria, Russia, South & North America. 10,000 went to Ireland raising Ireland from repeated potato famines & fallow land to a security in agriculture, industry, & banking. The Huguenots introduced wine & beer making, the lace industry, the silk industry, stock-farming, rotation of crops & nursery farming.

The Huguenots held assemblies openly & professed their faith openly. The Bible was translated from the original Greek & Hebrew into the French language. It was read by all - thus they became wiser than their Popish priests. The Psalms of David was translated & set to music. The people could understand their religion for the first time. The 16th Century recognized the Majesty of God & believed that man’s improvement came by the Grace of God. The 20th Century recognizes the majestic of man & believes that man’s improvements come by the grace of science.

The Huguenots were not political, did not rally round any political leaders. They did not rise up to overthrow the throne, nor to destroy the House of Valois, nor to destroy the Church, nor even the power of the Church. They only wished to preserve their churches, their synods, & their consistories, & to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience.

Truly, more than a third of the people were Huguenots, but the power lay in the House of Valois, in the highest nobles, the highest clergy, & they - supported by the King & armies of Spain, the Pope & the Jesuits now just coming into power - & so the Huguenots decided to fight in their own defense.

The Huguenots, fortunately, were supported by Catherine of Navarre; her son, Henry IV (Henry of Navarre); Admiral Coligny; his brother the Seigneur d’Andelot; the Duke of Subise; Colonel LaNoe; Colonel DeLa Mandeville; Colonel de la Fontaine; The Duke of Bouillon; County of Montgomery; Admiral deCamp: all of whom were nobles of high rank. All were in despair, for they were in danger of not only losing their titles & provinces, but their lives.

Henry IV., Henry of Navarre, as a youth was entrusted to the Prince of Conde, & on his demise to Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots. Although indoctrinated by Coligny in the Reformed manner, he was more interested in women & the social graces than truly in the Huguenot Cause. He was affianced to Marguerite de Valouis, sister of Charles IX, regardless of difference in religion. And so, it was during the nuptial festivities of the young King of Navarre (his intellectual mother having died the year before) that the blackest crime in French history was engineered & perpetrated by order of Charles IX. On Sunday, August 24, 1572 - St. Bartholomew’s Day - the plot was executed. It was agreed that Admiral Coligy & all the Huguenots, except the King of Navarre & the Prince of Conde, should be slain. And so by foul design, the Huguenots were invited to Paris for the marriage festivities so that the Catholics might in one vile sweep, utterly annihilate the Huguenot people.

As the order came nearer to consummation, King Henry IV was seized with fits of tremor, palsy, pallor, & shock, & the cold sweat ran from beneath his wig & channeled down his slanting forehead & angular nose. Catherine de Medici caused the great bell of St. Germain de Auxerrois to be struck. Pistols were fired. The King tried to countermand the order, but it was too late. Such pillage, destruction, fire, murder, & mutilation has never been equaled by Goths, Huns, or Vandals. Seven hundred were pillaged, 5,000 persons perished in Paris alone. It lasted seven days. Neither the aged, nor the infirm, nor children were spared. Nor women deep with child were spared. They were hacked, stabbed, chopped with halbards, pistol beaten, cast from windows, beaten, & thrown into the Seine (a fishing net that hangs straight down in the water). Seven or eight hundred fled to prisons & churches for protection, only to be dragged out & consummated by beating out their brains with pole axes, en masse, at the Valee de Misere (the Valley of Misery), then the Coup de Grace - cast into the river.

Death reigned on, no walk of life was spared. Ladies stood on blood soaked bodies of Huguenots & laughed over their triumph. When it was over, the King followed by his Clergy & Court, marched to the Cathedral of Notre Dame in spirited procession while Hymns of chant were sung & thanks to Almighty God was offered for delivering France from men whose greatest sin was a wish to worship God according to their own conscience.

This massacre threw all of Europe into violent consternation, even thousands of Catholics. Internal turmoil & civil wars followed in France. Henry the III, either because of compassion or from memory of the vile persecutions, in 1576 restored the rights of the Huguenots & restored the heredity titles of the nobles. But in 1589, Henry III was assassinated because of this toleration.

Henry of Navarre in 1576, again joined the Huguenots, either to advance their cause or his own. At any rate, his success was their success. Following the battle of Contras, the Huguenots & Henry of Navarre were well established. However, the most brilliant & shining hours of the whole Huguenot Contest was when Henry IV, King Henry of Navarre, led the Huguenots in the struggle for his throne, against the Church Party, the nobles, the Royal Army, The Army of the Pope, & the armies of Spain. Henry completely clad in glistening armor & shiny mail, mounted on a hugh bay charger. For some time the battle swayed in doubt. Finally, the Leaguers hesitated, broke, then fled; pursued by the Huguenots & Henry, covered with blood & dust.

This was France’s “finest hour”.

On Sunday, July 25, 1593, Henry of Navarre was received into the body of the Roman Church. The Huguenots were saddened that their leader had created the greatest act of hypocrisy since Julian abjured Christianity. Henry never meant to desert the Huguenots. Actually, he felt he could render greater service to them, as well as France. On April 13, 1593, he granted the Huguenots the memorable “Edict of Nantes”. This Edict gave “perpetual & irrevocable”, liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, churches of their own & their own ministers; also their own judges & garrisons, & paid for their own troops. This Edict was sent to Parlament & registered Fe. 25, 1599. After a glorious reign of 22 years, King Henry of Navarre was assassinated May, 1610. The greatest king in all French history. The Huguenots had flourished, but with his death the picture changed rapidly. Louis XIV, who followed Henry of Navarre, set about on the most terrible persecution of all time. First, the Edict was revoked by the King. Then followed the persecutions. The Huguenots no longer had fortresses, cities, nor organizations. Twenty years had passed under the protection of King Henry IV, & all form of cohesion was now gone. (Lord) Conde was gone, Coligny was gone, Henry of Navarre was gone. All was gone. 800,000 perished in galleys, prisons, or by the noose. There was no relief, no hope.

Louis XIII, not yet 9 years old, succeeded Henry of Navarre, his father. The Queen Mother, though a Catholic, reaffirmed the Edict of Nantes, which was confirmed again in 1614. However, Cardinal Richelieu was determined to break the backs of the Protestants. Richelieu continued the ferocity in the Seven Year War until he had completely broken the back of these poor helpless, hapless people.

Cardinal Richelieu died in 1642. The King died in 1643. Although their power was lost, the Huguenots were increasing in number. They were reputed to have 200,000 during the reign of Louis XIII.

Louis XIV, succeeded his father & during his minority, the Queen was appointed Regent. The Edict of Nantes was again confirmed by the Regent in 1643. In 1652 the King confirmed it again when he reached his majority. Yet, as soon as the King, Louis XIV, took affairs into his own hands, as the result of the influence of Cardinal Mazarine & the clergy, he made the firm resolve at the palace altar to destroy the Huguenots. The priests continued to harangue their people , claiming that the Huguenots had brought it upon themselves, that they had tried to destroy the Church & even France itself, that they were heretics & even blasphemers against God. While the Huguenots, worshiping in secrecy, prayed for their persecutors’ forgiveness, “for they know not what they do”.

The Dragons cast the Reformed Fathers into fires & brought them out half-roasted; suspended others under the armpits by large ropes & dipped them repeatedly into wells until half dead & they renounced their faith. From the fires they took tongs & led Huguenots around by the noses until converted. These poor scared people faired no better after conversion, for they were scarred & marked for life as “unwilling converts”. But it must be said to the everlasting gratitude of the French people that large numbers of the Catholic French would not carry out the orders & actually aided, together with French officials, the escape of the Protestants & large numbers went with the Huguenots, having the Protestants & Large numbers went with the Huguenots, having lost faith in their own church & government. What happened to the Huguenots who remained in France? All marriages not performed by priests became concubinage, & all children bastards with no rights. As late as 1726, priests with soldiers broke into the homes of Protestants, seized the children & forced them into Church Schools operated by monks & made their parents, Huguenots, pay for their Catholic education. If the children escaped, their fathers paid an enormous fine or died in dungeons. A marriage must be re-consummated by a priest; if refused, the men went to the galleys, the women to die in jail, the minister to the gibbet, the children to a convent. This was as late as 1751.

Following the death of Henry of Navarre, Henry IV, & the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes April 1598, there occurred the greatest single migration of people in the history of the world. France was now bled white by the migration of these religious people. The total number who migrated exceeded 500,000 souls. Some say 600,000 & 800,000. Although it certainly was more than an incident, leading authorities in France & abroad set this migration as the date of the end of stable government in France, & France can trace its subsequent instability & present-day trouble to this heinous period. For now, many thousands who were not Huguenots lost faith in their government & that faith has never been completely restored.

In their new homes, the Huguenots settled down on land given to them by England or Holland. There they stayed, worked, farmed, & lived until the American Revolution. Then they served faithfully their new cause. After the War, they were given land grants in the western parts of the sates which they so faithfully had served, many of their sons took up the grants.

After the second war with England, their sons received similar grants for services in the War of 1812. Our Huguenot forebears now appeared in the Ohio, Indiana, & Tennessee territories, & the sate of Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, Florida & Louisiana. The process repeated itself after the Mexican War & the War between the states, & the march was again westward - Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, & finally to the Golden Gate.

Perhaps the truest & best light shed upon the kind of people our Huguenot ancestors were is best summed up by Peter Stuyvesant, first Governor of the Netherlands, who said: “They are the most respected, respectable, & valuable accession ever made to the population of our Country”.

Note: This was taken from a portion of “The Huguenot Migration in Europe & America, It’s Cause & Effect.”