The partial repose which the Protestants enjoyed for more than ten years was attended by a revival of their worship, especially in Provence and Dauphine. In 1724, therefore, Louis XV., at the instigation of the Jesuits, issued a severe edict against them. The spirit of the age, however, now began to be opposed to persecution. An edict of 1752 declared marriages and baptisms by Protestant ministers to be null, and required the repetition of them by the Roman Catholic clergy. But when, upon this, many began again to flee from their country, the disgust of the Roman Catholics them selves was so much excited, that the court recalled the edict. :Montesquieu successfully advocated the cause of toleration; Voltaire did much to promote it by his exposure of the judicial murder of John Calms (q.v.). At last, by an edict in 1787, which indeed, was not registered by the parliament till 1789, Louis XVI. declared the Protestant mar riages and baptisms to be valid, and restored to the Protestants equal civil rights, except that they might not be advanced to public offices and dignities. Even in 1789 a pro. posal for the complete emancipation of the Protestants was rejected by the national assembly, which, however, admitted Protestants, and even Protestant preachers as members without objection; and in 1790, it passed a decree for the restitution of all the properties' of non-Catholics confiscated since the time of Louis X1V. The Code
Napoleon gave Protestants in France equal civil and political rights with Roman Catho lics. The charter granted by the Bourbons acknowledged the freedom of Protestant worship, and the state pledged itself for the maintenance of the pastors; yet, under the government of the restoration, the privileges of Protestants were in many ways circum scribed. After the revolution of July, 1830, the reformed charter of France proclaimed universal freedom of conscience and of worship, which principle has been maintained in subsequent changes. Protestants are not now subjected to many exceptional hard ships, and have in various important instances been protected by the imperial authority from the arbitrary exercise of power attempted by illiberal local magistrates adverse to their religion. But the recognfred Protestant church—in which are included bothR(formal and Lutherans, and of which the pastors receive small salaries from the state (see FRANCE) —was not till 1872 permitted to hold synods or general assemblies; at a synod held in that year the conservative party in the church, in spite of some opposition, carried their proposal that the church, which had long been without ft formally binding creed. should adopt an evangelical confession. See Felice, !fist, des Protestants en Pronee(1851); Hang, La France Protestante (1859); Smiles, The Huguenots in England (1873).