ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the setting and context for the Protestant presence in the French navy. It then turns to ways in which it changed, before finally focusing on how the state worked to regulate Protestants so as to eliminate them ultimately from its military fleet. It examines what happened to Protestant religious practices at the heart of the navy in the period between the Wars of Religion and the Wars of the Spanish Succession, and, more specifically, at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Beginning in 1679–1682, things went from bad to worse: troubles, restrictions, prohibitions, and punishments seemed to be multiplying in preparation for the more violent or insidious measures that surrounded the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The king's decisions continued to be enforced fairly flexibly as long as Jean-Baptiste Colbert, secretary of state for the navy, remained alone in charge of his ministry.
