ABSTRACT
Most French Huguenots who lived at the outset of the religious wars would have been filled with hope. All the signs indicated that the spread of the Reformation would not halt at France's borders. Indeed, the late 1550s were marked by the conversion of French princes, nobles and bishops, encouraging signs from the court, and a groundswell of popular support for Reformed ideas in the cities. This briefly opened up the very real possibility that France might become a Protestant kingdom. But these ideals were never realized; the religious wars spelt the end of these hopes. The peaceful conversion of France was not attained and the pristine church order that Calvinists sought to instil vanished before their own eyes.
