Protestants d’Auvergne : De la Réforme à la Révolution (I)
The Auvergne is known as a Roman Catholic province. However, Lutheran ideas made their way into this area as early as the 1530s, and Protestantism could still found there on the eve of the Revolution. The approach of this article is based on the people themselves, and not on the institutions in the four departments (Allier, Cantal, Haute-Loire, and Puy-de-Dôme) and the four places where the worship was authorized (Maringues, Job, Parentignat, and La Gazelle). The file, which numbers about 1,500 people, shows a community that is small, destitute, and highly rural. The persecutions, before the Edict of Nantes (1598) and after the Revocation (1685), were accompanied by a significant erosion in numbers and a high rate of emigration, but also a firm local resistance.