Writing the Huguenot Past

In 1687 refugee minister François Gaultier de Saint-Blancard published a history of the recent persecutions in France, explaining to his readers that he wanted ‘to preserve their memory for posterity’. ¹ Elie Benoist was undoubtedly more eloquent in the preface to his Histoire de l’Edit de Nantes, but his argument was identical: ‘If History be properly devoted to preserve for posterity the memory of the most remarkable things that happen in the world,’ he argued, ‘it cannot be denied that the sorry end of the liberties, which the Reformed have so long enjoyed in France, is one of the most memorable events, which merits to be taken in hand to instruct those in times to come’. ² Writing the Huguenot past, in other words, was a way to safeguard memories of persecution and fixate the story of what it meant to be a refugee.