Dear Friends,
We could not believe our eyes. There, on a display table at the Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, in Paris, was Henri IV’s personal Bible. Leather bound, with the fleur de lys design, we know it to be his Bible because the first page of the New Testament section has his name and seal on it. Barbara and I were there for a colloquium. We actually went over and touched it!
The sad part of the tale is that Henri de Navarre came to the throne as a Huguenot. But in 1593, just four years after acceding, he gave up his evangelical faith, and his Bible, claiming that “Paris was worth a mass.” Yielding to pressure from the Catholic League, he set the tone, not for constitutional government, but for royal absolutism. Though he would draft the Edict of Nantes in 1598, granting limited tolerance to Protestants, his move secured a Bourbon succession. One heir in the dynasty was Louis XIV, who revoked the Edict and fiercely persecuted the Huguenots.
Significantly, the title pages of Henri IV’s Bible were ripped off. Presumably he had recorded certain personal vows which he was now embarrassed to have future readers remember. The “what ifs” of history are not for us to know. But it would seem that if Henri had held firm, France today not only would have become the world leader in democracy, but a country filled with biblical religion. What we can know is that the effects of the Reformation were largely neutralized by the 18th century, so that today the Protestant church is a struggling minority.
History weighs heavily on French Evangelicals. Not everything is bleak. There are marvelous works going on there, including the one dear to our hearts, the Reformed Seminary in Aix. A number of churches are alive and well. Roman Catholicism is no longer bent on terrorizing Huguenots. And what if the Lord of history were preparing France through these trends for a massive reversal of what Henri IV inflicted? What if every French person, from the leaders to the ordinary citizen, had a personal Bible, full of vows of faithfulness? Who is to say what forces could be unleashed in such a case.
Very Truly Yours,
William Edgar,
President