Revocation of Edict of Nantes

October 18, 1685

Louis XIV revoked the nearly ninety-year-old toleration granted by Henry IV and ordered all Protestant worship in France suppressed. Churches were demolished; pastors were exiled; other Huguenots were forbidden to leave but fled anyway. Perhaps two hundred thousand skilled workers carried their trades to London, Berlin, and Amsterdam, enriching France's rivals with the talent and capital it had expelled.