Exile and Integration in the British Isles : The case of Catholic clergymen converted to Protestantism in the reign of Louis XIV

Résumé 0

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, just like the United Provinces or certain German states, the British Isles were a refuge for ex-members of the clergy who had converted at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Some joined the Church of England upon their arrival, but others converted to Calvinism.  The question of assimilation was then double for these men. On the one hand, it was linked to exile and the need to integrate into a new country whose language, customs and climate, among other factors, were different to that of the kingdom of France. On the other hand, this integration may have been trickier because of their conversion and the way the converted were perceived in the host societies. Exile was nevertheless a necessity for them. Indeed in the 1660s, Louis XIV forbade a clergyman to convert to Protestantism. Exile then was practically inevitable, his only alternative being to go into hiding.  However as ex-Catholics in their adopted land, particularly in England, known for its anti-Catholicism, they could only be regarded with great suspicion. What is then interesting is not so much to understand what they did to become assimilated in a new country and among new co-religionists, but the welcome they received and their reactions to it.The principal difficulty in studying such a question is that, among all of the ex-clergymen who converted and who took refuge in the British Isles, many left no trace, apart from their abjuration in a conformist or non-conformist Church.  The men who will appear here often published works after their conversion, whether they be conversion narratives for some of them, sermons and treatises for those who became pastors, or different writings relative to this question of assimilation. The authors cited the most here are Louis Désécotais , an ex-Capuchin, Jean-Baptiste Renoult , an ex-Cordelier, Charles Charlot d’Argenteuil , ex-regular canon and parish priest, and Jean-Baptiste Denis,  ex-priest. Thus, three principal points emerge: how did these ex-clergymen view their integration, how did they analyse the difficulties they came across, and what solutions did they find?