Satire on Louis XIV and the Persecution of Protestants in France

This Dutch etching depicts Louis XIV receiving a delegation of Protestant refugees—recognizable by their modest dress and distressed expressions—while courtiers and soldiers surround him. The scene condemns the French king's revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), which stripped religious protections from Huguenots and triggered mass persecution and exile.

The print exemplifies the Northern European print satire tradition of the late 17th century, wherein political and religious conflict was rendered through crowded, legible scenes of interaction and gesture. Dutch and German publishers circulated such polemical etchings across borders, shaping public opinion on dynastic and confessional disputes. The work combines caricatural distortion of royal authority with documentary specificity—a format that would influence later satirists like Hogarth and Gillray, and ultimately the visual language of political cartooning and comic narrative.