Edict of Nantes
Lecoq de Boisbaudran was a member of a noble family of Huguenots from the French provinces of Poitou and Angoumois. The Huguenots were French Protestants, a population that was devastated during the French Wars of Religion (1561–1598). The Edict of Nantes (1598) granted substantial civil rights to the Huguenots even though it maintained Catholicism's position as the established religion of France. The Edict of Nantes was overturned by the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685), which officially sanctioned persecution of Protestants. The Lecoq de Boisbaudran family was of considerable fortune until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, after which much of their property was confiscated and sold.