THE NEW FAITH SHATTERS THEM

ARTISANS, SHOPKEEPERS, ENTREPRENEURS — EMERGING CAPITALISTS —  MAKE PROTESTANTISM A MASS MOVEMENT IN FRANCE

Nobles obtain most of the attention. But their belief is linked to clan rivalries and the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre decapitates their movement.

*It began by striking Protestant nobles who had come from all France for a royal wedding. 

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The philosophy is middle-class: A list of commoner victims of the massacre shows that they were "shoemakers, bookbinders, hatmakers, weavers, pin-makers, armor-makers, barrel makers, watchmakers, goldsmiths, furniture makers, gilders, button-makers, hardware makers etc."

-- The 16th Century by Jules Michelet, 1833, remark that most historians skip. 

• Moral and intellectual rigor, the Church's corruption, political factors, regional traditions of heresy, local issues and pastors' personal impact let Protestantism cross class lines, but businesspeople are at its core.Training, habit and self-interest predispose them to accept the new faith, in a way that is "sincere and based on calculation."

-- Citation: Balzac, The Calvinist Martyr

 

• When Louis XIV demands conversion 50,000 families emigrate. Voltaire's description of their impact abroad shows their economic clout:

Près de cinquante mille familles, en trois ans de temps, sortirent du royaume, et furent après suivies par d'autres. Elles allèrent porter vers l'étranger les arts, les manufactures, la richesse. Presque tout le nord de l'Allemagne, pays encore agreste et dénué d'industrie, reçut une nouvelle face de ces multitudes transplantées. Elles peuplèrent des villes entières. Les étoffes, les galons, le chapeaux, les bas, qu'on achetaient auparavant en France, furent fabriques par eux. Un faubourg entier de Londres fut peuplé d'ouvriers français en soie ; d'autres y portèrent l'art de donner la perfection aux cristaux, qui fut alors perdu en France. On trouve encore très communément dans Allemagne l'or que les réfugiés y répandirent. Ainsi la France perdit environ cinq cent mille habitants, un quantité prodigieuse d'espèces, et surtout des arts dont ses ennemis s'enrichirent. La Hollande y gagna d'excellents officiers et des soldats. Le prince d'Orange et le duc de Savoie eurent des régiments entiers de réfugiés. Il y en eut qui s'établirent jusque vers le cap de Bonne Espérance  [... ]  Les Français ont été dispersés plus loin que les Juifs.

-- Le siècle de Louis XIV de Voltaire, ed. 2015, pp. 612-613

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At the heart of Protestant doctrine: Salvation is one's personal responsibility.

• That belief leads to a serious view of life and to the "Protestant ethic" of honesty, work and austerity. Sixteenth-century French Protestants would have appreciated this couple, whose  appearance and behavior is exactly the opposite of the superhuman figures of antiquity associated with nobles.

American Gothic by Grant Wood, 1930, Art Institute of Chicago / zoom

• Protestants wish to cut themselves off entirely from the idolatrous Catholics to create a righteous society.

Wearing dark clothes without ornamentation; avoiding the theater, taverns and community fetes; forbidding even attending the funerals of Catholic family members, states that one belongs to God's righteous, separate elect, literally "holier than thou." 

• Those values help launch businesses. 

Material success becomes a sign of salvation and leads to the belief that poverty is due to laziness and hedonism, signs of damnation: 

These famous studies explore the connection. Calvin himself disavowed that use of his doctrine: "The rich," he said, "are servants of the poor." 

• Suppressing the Church means suppressing alms, hospitals and schools.

In areas in France that Protestants control charity is competently managed to poor deemed to be deserving, but inquiries let people with means condemn those who do not. In England, destroying the monasteries and convents sends monks, nuns and lepers into the streets to beg. 

• Austerity encourages plowing gains back into business...

And favors arts of costless grandeur: In England the language of the King James Bible and the epic poetry of John Milton; in France, psalms by which ordinary people praise God directly so powerfully that Catherine de Medici and Charles IX attend services to listen; in New England, the stark effectiveness of wooden churches:

Zoom

• Protestant craftsmen often work outside the guilds, charging lower prices

--  Michelet.

Historians have not noticed that statement, to my knowledge.

• Abolishing religious holidays adds 50 more workdays each year: Imagine apprentices' and employees' reactions when "heretic" patrons impose that change.

-- Protestant stores and workshops stay open even on Christmas:
Histoire des protestants en France de la Réforme à la Révolution

dir. Philippe Wolff, 2001

Protestants humiliate the vulnerable
 by claiming themselves superior 
and defy practices that protect them.

Sixteenth-century engraving (detail), private collection

End of this section.

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Next section,

V.2. 

Absolute monarchy exerts control