Facing the Revocation

Winner of the David H. Pinkney Prize of the French Historical SocietyWinner of the Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize of the Western Association of Women HistoriansWinner 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 economicadvantages 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 memberswho 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.

Building her book on decades of research and the unflagging pursuit of family papers, Lougee offers a detailed account of the varied responses of one extended family of Huguenot nobles to Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The author effectively blends an intimate family portrait of the Robillard de Champagné with a broader historical account that offers a new perspective on the fate of the Huguenots and the limitations of the Sun King's power....In the end, each individual wrestled with the choice to convert or flee with considerations of family, property, class consciousness, and faith. Local officials appeared reluctant to enforce the royal prohibition against flight. The Champagné joined communities of Huguenot expatriates to rebuild their social network....Highly recommended., This a compelling, if complicated history. Lougee conveys it with compassion and purpose, all the while maintaining an enquiring eye and critical distanceâShe relates with care and nuance the story of Marie de La Rochefoucauld, a Reformed matriarch whose determination and dedication combined with careful planning and financial acumen to not simply save, but in fact advance her family amid the appalling circumstances of religious oppression. The result is a highly original set of insights into the uncertainties and burdens that French Protestants encountered as they confronted the royal proscription of their ancestral religion....Throughout her study, Lougee reveals and investigates the female voice, which has so long been muted (though not entirely absent) in accounts of the Revocation and the Refuge., Carolyn Chappell Lougee's book sheds light on the complex experiences which led one French noble family to fragment in response to the Revocation, compelling many of them to start new lives (or end them) in the Netherlands, England and Ireland...The afterword, where Lougee tells the reader how she came across the first fragments of the archive that she has so lovingly reconstructed...is an absorbing narrative which wins the reader's admiration for her persistence in tracking down the papers, which had become as scattered as the Huguenots themselves., Thanks to Lougee's relentless archival digging this book succeeds like no other in capturing the human voice of the Huguenot exile experience...Lougee's deeply moving account of their decisions and experiences provides an unparalleled and personal insight into the complexities faced by Huguenots that is so often lacking in current scholarship on early modern refugees, A masterful study of a provincial nobility and a Protestant communityâLougee's tracing of the Champagnés into exile rewrites our understanding of the RefugeâReading this excellent book in the midst of the world's current refugee crisis gives it a particular resonance. Of course, addressing that issue is not Lougee's purpose, but one can only hope that, in time, modern refugees will find as thorough and gifted an historian as she.

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.