Reading the Bible in early eighteenth-century Dublin. The Huguenot pastor Henri de Rocheblave (1665-1709)

The almanacs for 1686 provide arresting images of the triumphalism that swept through Catholic France when, on 17 October 1685, Louis XIV signed the edict of Fontainebleau revoking the edict of Nantes, which had granted legal status to Protestants for three generations. According to the almanac makers, who as usual were grinding a political axe, the Revocation was foremost among the achievements of "Louis le Granm la terreur et l'admiration de l'univers" during the previous year. ne of their images transmits a pithy political message about the way the Revocation was perceived, and was meant to be perceived, by the public. the main engraving portrays Louis XIV graciously acknowledging the submission of the Republic of Genoa, whose dogs bows low before the French king. Under Louis's feet, significantly, the central cartouche illustrates the demolition of the temple of Charenton the place of worship for the Reformed community in Paris, which began on Monday 22 October 1685 and continued over the next six days. In art as in life, the systematic demolition of Protestant temples was as much about the submission, even the subjection, of the Huguenots to the king, as it was about their conversion to the king's religion