ABSTRACT
When the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685) ended France's experiment in religious toleration, the French Calvinist military experience was already a century-and-a-quarter old; thus, the Huguenot soldiers who served across Europe from 1685 to 1713 were followers in a long tradition. The characteristics and qualities of Huguenot soldiering after 1685 did not emerge out of a vacuum and, therefore, this chapter focuses on the history of Huguenot soldiers in foreign service in the preceding 125 years. A combination of social structure, service history and confessional zeal allowed French Calvinists to be mobilised quickly into very effective members of both Huguenot and foreign armies. The hard charging of the aristocratic Huguenot heavy cavalry, caught up in religious fervour, swept the much larger Catholic army to destruction. When this happened in the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Geneva, Brandenburg and elsewhere in the late 1680s and 1690s, Huguenots were simply following a well-worn pattern.
