A French king granted religious tolerance in 1598 — his grandson tore it up in 1685
In 1598, Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, granting Protestant Huguenots substantial rights to worship and hold public office after decades of brutal religious war, in a kingdom that remained officially Catholic. It held for nearly a century until his grandson Louis XIV revoked it in 1685, triggering a mass exodus of skilled Huguenot artisans and merchants to Protestant countries, a self-inflicted economic wound historians still study.