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Facing the Revocation tells the story of one French Protestant (Huguenot) family, the Champagnés, as they faced the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which criminalized their religion in 1685. In this sweeping family saga, Carolyn Chappell Lougee narrates how the Champagné family's persecution and Protestant devotion unsettled their economic advantages and social standing. The family provides a window onto the choices that individuals and their kin had to make in these trying circumstances, the agency of women within families, and the consequences of their choices. Lougee traces the lives of the family members who escaped; the kin and community members who decided to stay, both complying with and resisting the king's will; and those who resettled in Britain and Prussia, where they adapted culturally and became influential members of society. It challenges the way Huguenot history has been told for 300 years and thereby offers new insights into the reign of Louis XIV.
List of contents
- Principal Personages
- Glossary
- Introduction
- Part One: The Champagné in Saintonge
- Chapter 1: A Family of the Charentes in Distaff
- Chapter 2: Faith of the Fathers and Will of the King
- Chapter 3: Marie in Jeopardy
- Chapter 4: Aunt Madelene's Offensive
- Chapter 5: Families Endure
- Part Two: Escaping from France
- Chapter 6: Preparing the Escape
- Chapter 7: Chancing Escape
- Part Three: Those Who Stayed
- Chapter 8: Thérèse's Guardian
- Chapter 9: Caring for Thérèse
- Chapter 10: Cousins
- Part Four: Resettling Abroad
- Chapter 11: Into the Refuge
- Chapter 12: Experiencing Exile
- Chapter 13: Marie at the Head of the Family
- Conclusion: History and Story
- Afterword: Retelling the Champagné Story
- Appendix: Family Trees
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Carolyn Chappell Lougee is Frances and Charles Field Professor in History Emerita and an award-winning teacher at Stanford University. She is the author of Le Paradis des femmes: Women, Salons, and Social Stratification in Seventeenth-Century France.
Summary
Winner of the David H. Pinkney Prize of the French Historical Society
Winner of the Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize of the Western Association of Women Historians
Winner of the Award for Best Scholarly Work of the National Huguenot Society
The Edict of Nantes ended the civil wars of the Reformation in 1598 by making France a kingdom with two religions. Catholics could worship anywhere, while Protestants had specific locations where they were sanctioned to worship. Over the coming decades Protestants' religious freedom and civil privileges eroded until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, issued under Louis XIV in 1685, criminalized their religion.
The Robillard de Champagné, a noble family, were among those facing the Revocation. They and their co-religionists confronted the difficult decision whether to obey this new law and convert, feign conversion and remain privately Protestant, or break the law and attempt to flee secretly in what was the first modern mass migration. In this sweeping family saga, Carolyn Chappell Lougee narrates how the Champagné family's persecution and Protestant devotion unsettled their economic advantages and social standing. The family provides a window onto the choices that individuals and their kin had to make in these trying circumstances, the agency of women within families, and the consequences of their choices. Lougee traces the lives of the family members who escaped; the kin and community members who decided to stay, both complying with and resisting the king's will; and those who resettled in Britain and Prussia, where they adapted culturally and became influential members of society. She challenges the narrative Huguenots told over subsequent generations about the deeper faith of those who opted for exile and the venal qualities of those who remained in France.
A masterful and moving account of the Hugenots, Facing the Revocation offers a deeply personal perspective on one of the greatest acts of religious intolerance in history.
Additional text
To flee or not to flee? Carolyn Chappell Lougee's deeply personal and learned quest to recover the fates of Huguenot noble families in the Saintonge is an exemplary study of the consequences of terrorizing persecution for those who were being defined as heretical. Lougee depicts an embarrassingly poignant moment in French history that henceforth must always be remembered.
