In a Wiki-walk I recently discovered the Dragonnades.
It was . . . wait for it . . .
The French Imposition!
Your spoilt spoiler . . .
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That’s how many Huguenots ended up in Florida. Can’t imagine living in Florida in the late 17th century was fun.
Yup. But note that Louis XIV was hardly alone in this practice, even as a “disciplinary” measure rather than a military necessity. Where d’you guys figured the 3rd Amendment sprang from ?
They’ll quarter soldiers in my house when they pry my front door key from my cold dead hands!
Considering they’re soldiers, that won’t be difficult.
Mother-- . . . who designed it that way?!
I always figured Redcoats must have been quartered in colonists’ homes during the Revolution. Not so?
Before that, too. History corner time !
One of the big problems of the 16th-17th centuries was that as armies got all professional-like, they not only grew in size but the people that made up these permanent armies ceased being part of the economy. So even in peacetime you’ve got groups of tens of thousands of blokes who spent their days drilling, shooting in the air and getting bored. Also needing to get fed.
Since agriculture was in most places still on a “subsistance with a tiny growth margin” level, feeding soldiers was something of an issue. And since bored soldiers tend to go a-plundering and a-raping especially when their wages are late, that was another problem. Basically any regiment quickly turned into a spinning black hole of hunger, disease and popular resentment, just by existing in one place for any length of time.
So the solution to that was to keep armies more or less constantly on the march even when there wasn’t a war going on (and pray like hell that any war took place on foreign soil). Which creates a new problem : these jokers needed to rest sometimes. And while camps are all well and good, they get the soldiersgrousing, which in turn turns them all unprofessional and rapey. And in the winter camps are wholly inadequate of course (remember Valley Forge ?).
Hence, quartering. The worst of all worlds, but like 90% of military decisions the most logical answer to a set of progressively more insane questions :p.
Eventually both production and logistics caught up enough that permanent army camps and forts became viable, always segregated from the civilian population, but I couldn’t really tell you when. Sometime during the Industrial Revolution, probably ?
I’m in a 15% tax bracket. Would a soldier boarder cost me more than 5% of my income?
Depends. What’s your current hard liquor and hooker budget ? 
It ended badly, of course. Eventually there was forced conversion, massacre, and exodus. An estimated 500,000 Hugenots fled to other countries, many of which welcomed them openly. Since those able to flee tended to be those with resources, education, and/or ability, this resulted in a net loss for France and a gain for other countries.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
The exodus of Huguenots from France created a brain drain, as many Huguenots had occupied important places in society. The kingdom did not fully recover for years. The French crown’s refusal to allow non-Catholics to settle in New France may help to explain that colony’s slow rate of population growth compared to that of the neighbouring British colonies, which opened settlement to religious dissenters. By the time of the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years’ War), a sizeable population of Huguenot descent lived in the British colonies, and many participated in the British defeat of New France in 1759-60.[69]
Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, invited Huguenots to settle in his realms, and a number of their descendants rose to positions of prominence in Prussia. Several prominent German military, cultural, and political figures were ethnic Huguenot, including poet Theodor Fontane,[70] General Hermann von François,[71] the hero of the First World War Battle of Tannenberg, Luftwaffe General and fighter ace Adolf Galland,[72] Luftwaffe flying ace Hans-Joachim Marseille, and famed U-boat captain Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière.[73] The last Prime Minister of the (East) German Democratic Republic, Lothar de Maizière,[74] is also a descendant of a Huguenot family, as is the German Federal Minister of Defence, Thomas de Maizière.
The persecution and flight of the Huguenots greatly damaged the reputation of Louis XIV abroad, particularly in England. The two kingdoms, which had enjoyed peaceful relations prior to 1685, became bitter enemies and fought against each other in a series of wars (called the “Second Hundred Years’ War” by some historians) from 1689 onward.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. On the plus side those Huguenots that fled France maintained ties with those that stayed behind (and, y’know, lived) which in turn opened commercial lines and markets that France would have had trouble linking with otherwise (South Africa & the Dutch Indies for example).
Still, bit of a shit show. And nobody really groks why Louis XIV suddenly got a raging hard-on for the Protestants (and a newfound love for the Catholic ultras), when he’d spent most of his prior reign trying to stamp down the aforementionned Catholic ultras.
Depends on how many soldiers play quarters in his home…?