The Huguenot Diaspora and the Politics of Religion in Revolutionary France

Abstract

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1685 expelled over 200,000 Huguenots from France, led to the persecution and forced conversion of many Calvinists who remained in the country, and sparked fierce debate over religious qualifications for subjecthood and citizenship . The result of this debate, over one hundred years later was the French Revolution’s call for the return of the Huguenot population. The Constitution of 1791 granted citizenship to foreign-born Huguenots. Revolutionaries also passed measures to return lost ancestral lands to Huguenots as a form of reparations. Despite their efforts, few Huguenots returned to France. Their failed attempts to court Huguenots back to France reveal a previously missing element of the revolutionary definition of citizenship, one equally defined by the rejection of religious qualification and the history of religious persecution.