L’exil des huguenots messins à l’époque moderne

Abstract

During the modern age, the city of Metz used to have an original status inside the French Kingdom for long, which gave to its strong calvinist minority a great weight and a freedom that the reformed people didn’t have anywhere else. Despite it, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes shattered on the city, making the Huguenots to choose between their faith hand their homeland. In spite of the incured dangers, many of them took the risk of exiling themselves. More than 70% of the protestants in Metz left their city between the end of the 1670’s and the end of the 1690’s, mostly choosing to find shelter in Berlin, where they met again the main pastor of their community. This specific story makes the case of Metz particularly interesting, for it allows to note that the relationships between the royal power and protestants minorities could have depended on others factors than the only political will to reduce the whole kingdom to catholicism. The difficulty of exile also emphasizes the strength of the religious feeling among French protestants in general, and protestants in Metz in particular.