Europe was in turmoil both religiously and politically. People wanted personal freedoms. They were coming out of the Medieval era in which the general populace was fairly steeped in ignorance and illiteracy. People were being enlightened to a great degree because of the monks who left their orders and became street preachers. The Bible had been printed in the language of the people. Eyes were being opened to the false traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. People were being born again and being ba ptized according to the Scriptures.

The friction between church and state was growing as well. Reformed beliefs were touching even to the thrones of Europe. Whole countries, dominated by Roman Catholic ties, were threatening to sever relationships with the church, which threatening to undo the very fabric of then known society.

It was into this cauldron of controversy that France fell headlong during the days of John Calvin (1550-1600), a frenchman who wrote powerful arguments for reformed Biblical theology. France was being divided. Half believed it was time to overthrow the tyrannical power of the catholic church while the other half held tenaciously to the old ways. The result was civil unrest, that 200 years later would result in civil war. The conflicts between the romanist and the Protestant Reformers reached the boili ng point in 1572 with the massacre of Protestants which began at St Bartholomew's church in Paris and spread throughout the country. People were openly encouraged to kill Protestants since they were considered to be heretics. In one month 60,000 men, women, and children suspected of being Protestant, called Huguenots in France, were murdered. Properties were confiscated, children were legally torn from the care of their parents, masses were imprisoned and tortured for their f aith. For French Christians it must have appeared to be the Holocaust, the end of the world, or the Great Tribulation.

Mercifully King Henry II of France died on August 2, 1589 of an assassins knife, and was succeeded by Henry IV, King of Navarre who was of the Calvinist party. He sided with the Catholics for political reasons. His closest advisors and friends were Huguenots however who persuaded him to bring a semblance of peace by issuing an Edict guarantee religious liberty to worship as one's conscience dictated. The Edict of Nantes as it was called was proclaimed in April of 1598.

Unfortunately the Henry IV perished with an assassin's knife as well. This brought to the French throne Louis the XIV. (Louis the 14th). Louis was himself a Catholic but tolerant of the Huguenots at first but due, in part, to the persuasion of his mistress Madame de Maintenon he revoked the Edict of Nantes in October of 1685. Immediately it was open season on Protestant churches and families with solders leading the way. So terrible and fierce was the persecution that within a year France had lost 100,0 00 inhabitants, 9,000 sailors, and 12,000 soldiers, and 600 officers who fled to neighboring European countries for safety. Within three years more than 400,000 French people had left the country.

Calvinism had been the official state religion in the Netherlands since the Reformation. Thousands of French sought refuge in Protestant Netherlands (Holland). These French Huguenots became totally Netherlandicized and subsequently many immigrated to America with the Dutch, where they became part of the colonies and worshipped in Dutch Reformed Churches.