Sir, – Your report on the first Huguenot day in Cork (Home News, July 14th) says the Huguenots fled France as a result of the Edict of Nantes. This is incorrect.
The Edict of Nantes issued in 1598 by King Henry IV, himself a Calvinist who embraced Catholicism in order to become king, granted freedom of religion to the Huguenots. Henry was supposed to have said “Paris is worth one Mass.” It was the revocation of this edict by Louis XIV in 1685 that caused a mass migration of members of the Reformed Church, much to France’s loss and the gain of countries such as Ireland and South Africa. – Yours, etc,