The Huguenot: A Tale of the French Protestants

by G. P. R. James

First published 1839

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Set in seventeenth-century France under Louis XIV, The Huguenot follows Protestant characters living under increasing pressure from a monarchy determined to enforce religious conformity. James uses estates, families and personal relationships to show how official policy reaches into private life, making faith a question of property, marriage, safety and loyalty as well as belief. Suspicion and coercion steadily reduce the space in which compromise is possible.

The novel belongs to the long history of Huguenot persecution that culminated in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Rather than concentrating only on great ministers or battlefield events, James keeps much of the drama at household level. The threat of denunciation, forced conversion or exile gives the romance its historical pressure and shows how the policies of an absolutist monarchy could transform the lives of subjects far from Versailles.