How did the French wars and treatment of Huguenots under Louis XIV combine to hurt France's economy?

The Edict of Nantes was issued in 1598 by Henry IV of France. It granted the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a predominately Catholic nation. The Edict gained a new significance when Louis XIV broke the post-Nantes tradition of relative religious tolerance in France and, in his efforts to fully centralize the royal power, began to persecute the Protestants.

Louis initially supported traditional Gallicanism, which limited papal authority in France. However, his conflict with the pope did not prevent him from making Catholicism the only legally tolerated religion in France.

Louis saw the persistence of Protestantism as a disgraceful reminder of royal powerlessness. Responding to petitions, he initially excluded Protestants from office, constrained the meeting of synods, closed churches outside Edict-stipulated areas, banned Protestant outdoor preachers, and prohibited domestic Protestant migration.

In 1681, Louis dramatically increased the persecution of Protestants. He banned emigration and effectively insisted that all Protestants must be converted. He also began quartering dragoons in Protestant homes.

In 1685, Louis issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, which cited the redundancy of privileges for Protestants given their scarcity after the extensive conversions. The Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the Edict of Nantes.

The revocation caused France to suffer a kind of early brain drain, as it lost a large number of skilled craftsmen. Protestants across Europe were horrified at the treatment of their fellow believers, and Louis’s public image in most of Europe, especially in Protestant regions, suffered greatly.

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