French Huguenots

French Protestants, specifically Reformed or Calvinist, in the 16th and 17th centuries. From the German Eidgenoss, “sworn comrade or companion.” The minority Huguenots suffered intense persecution in the primarily Catholic nation, especially in the late 1600s, and many fled to other European nations or the American colonies. Over a century later, during the French Revolution in 1789, French Protestants were granted civil rights by the new revolutionary assembly.