<P> By 1620 the Huguenots were on the defensive, and the government increasingly applied pressure . A series of three small civil wars known as the Huguenot rebellions broke out, mainly in southwestern France, between 1621 and 1629 . revolted against royal authority . The uprising occurred a decade following the death of Henry IV, a Huguenot before converting to Catholicism, who had protected Protestants through the Edict of Nantes . His successor Louis XIII, under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de' Medici, became more intolerant of Protestantism . The Huguenots respond by establishing independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and openly revolting against central power . The rebellions were implacably suppressed by the French Crown . </P> <P> Louis XIV gained the throne in 1643 and acted increasingly aggressively to force the Huguenots to convert . At first he sent missionaries, backed by a fund to financially reward converts to Catholicism . Then he imposed penalties, closed Huguenot schools and excluded them from favoured professions . Escalating, he instituted dragonnades, which included the occupation and looting of Huguenot homes by military troops, in an effort to forcibly convert them . In 1685, he issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking the Edict of Nantes and declaring Protestantism illegal . </P> <P> The revocation forbade Protestant services, required education of children as Catholics, and prohibited emigration . It proved disastrous to the Huguenots and costly for France . It precipitated civil bloodshed, ruined commerce, and resulted in the illegal flight from the country of hundreds of thousands of Protestants many of who were intellectuals, doctors and business leaders whose skills were transferred to Britain as well as Holland, Prussia, and South Africa . Four thousand emigrated to the North American colonies, where they settled in New York and Virginia, especially . The English welcomed the French refugees, providing money from both government and private agencies to aid their relocation . Those Huguenots who stayed in France became Catholics and were called "new converts". </P> <P> After this, Huguenots (with estimates ranging from 200,000 to 1,000,000) fled to surrounding Protestant countries: England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia--whose Calvinist Great Elector Frederick William welcomed them to help rebuild his war - ravaged and underpopulated country . Following this exodus, Huguenots remained in large numbers in only one region of France: the rugged Cévennes region in the south . In the early 18th century, a regional group known as the Camisards who were Huguenots rioted against the Catholic Church in the region, burning churches and killing clergy . It took French troops years to hunt down and destroy all the bands of Camisards, between 1702 and 1709 . </P>

Name of french protestants granted toleration in france until 1685