Edict of Fontainebleau - End of The Edict of Fontainbleau

End of The Edict of Fontainbleau

In practice, the stringency of policies outlawing Protestants, opposed by the Jansenists, were relaxed during the reign of Louis XV, especially among discreet members of the upper classes. "The fact that a hundred years later, when Protestants were again tolerated, many of them were found to be both commercially prosperous and politically loyal indicates that they fared far better than the Catholic Irish", R.R. Palmer concluded.

By the end of the 18th century, prominent French philosophers and literary personalities of the day, including Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, were making persuasive arguments to promote religious tolerance. Efforts by Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes, minister to Louis XVI, and Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne, spokesman for the Protestant community in France, working with members of the parlement of the Ancien Régime, were particularly effective convincing the king to open French society over the concern expressed by some advisors. Thus, on 7 November 1787, Louis XVI signed the Edict of Versailles, known as the Edict of Tolerance, which was registered in parlement two-and-one-half months later, on 29 January 1788. This edict offered relief to all faiths – Calvinist Huguenots, Lutherans, as well as Jews – giving followers the civil and legal recognition, as well as the right to openly form congregations after 102 years of prohibition. Full religious freedom had to wait two more years, with enactment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789. However, the 1787 Edit of Tolerance was a pivotal step in eliminating religious strife and it officially ended religious persecution in France.