Question: How do we make a majority Protestant France?

I've been pondering this for a while, and I came up with a few ideas, but none are too satisfactory to me.
Ex 1: The King gets in a spat with the Pope, and makes the new Protestant "Church of France" (like England, and Sweden) He forces the nobility to convert, along with his subjects.
Ex 2: The nobility get into a spat with both the king, and the Pope, and they convert to Protestantism en masse. (like the HRE) They force their subjects to convert.
That's all I got so far. Ideas are appreciated!
 
I've been pondering this for a while, and I came up with a few ideas, but none are too satisfactory to me.
Ex 1: The King gets in a spat with the Pope, and makes the new Protestant "Church of France" (like England, and Sweden) He forces the nobility to convert, along with his subjects.

Why is this one so hard unlikely? The French spent a significant amount of time controlling the Church within their territory, after all. IMO by Louis XIV they pretty much had a Church of France.
 
Have the French Revolution embrace protestant (with a little p) ideals and forcibly convert people? Or, the Revolution strongly embraces secularism and bans all religion within France.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Or, the Revolution strongly embraces secularism and bans all religion within France.

That basically happened anyways.

You could have the French Wars of Religion turn out in ways much more favorable to the Protestants. Though that "Church of France" idea isn't half bad if I do say so myself.
 
It's not technically Protestant, but a surviving Cathar movement in the south could create some interesting possibilities.
 
That basically happened anyways.

You could have the French Wars of Religion turn out in ways much more favorable to the Protestants. Though that "Church of France" idea isn't half bad if I do say so myself.

Right, and yet Catholicism rears it head again within moments of the revolutionary Revolutionaries puttin' away the guillotine. How do we get it to stick?
 
Philip II Augustus of France married Ingeborg of Denmark but then attempted to have the wedding annulled. He was refused many times, and excommunicated for marrying another woman while the marriage to Ingeborg was still considered legitimate to the Pope. Philip eventually caved and declared Ingeborg his wife and legitimate queen to strengthen his claims to the throne of England.

You could make some changes here, and a Church of France could be created from this.
 
Ex 2: The nobility get into a spat with both the king, and the Pope, and they convert to Protestantism en masse. (like the HRE) They force their subjects to convert.

Just to make the HRE case a little bit more precise: Some noblemen converted, their and others' subjects converted en masse, more wanted to do so, and the citizens of free cities could (mostly). The more nobility converted, forcing their subjects ... and so on.

And I think this is what could easily happen in France similarly - actually, it started to happen.
Just the royal policy of suppression deviant creed prevented the success of it.

However, a Protestant "takeover" would either
a) undermine royal authority ("defender of Christianity") completely;
this might lead to the dethronement of the Bourbons, or the complete erosion
of the king's authority;

b) or the king has to abstain from the claim of (Christian) unversality before.
 

Hendryk

Banned
It's not as hard as it looks. Things were in flux throughout the second half of the 16th century and it's possible that even a fairly minor POD may have given the Protestants the upper hand. For example, if Catherine de Médicis dies earlier--say, around 1561, when Gaspard de Coligny's influence at the royal court was strongest. Coligny had converted to Protestantism a few years earlier and had quickly become the chief advocate of the Huguenot faction.
 
Could an Ottoman victory in 1565 lead to a Protestant or Huguenot victory in France, probably involving some knock-on effects? I'm using that for the purposes of a story I'm writing, but am not sure about the details of how it comes about. Probably won't go into the details in the story either, but I'm wondering if it is possible.
 
JHowever, a Protestant "takeover" would either
a) undermine royal authority ("defender of Christianity") completely;
this might lead to the dethronement of the Bourbons, or the complete erosion
of the king's authority;

This is the king who let the Ottomans use naval bases in Southern France, so I'm no t sure how serious we should be concerned.

It's not as hard as it looks. Things were in flux throughout the second half of the 16th century and it's possible that even a fairly minor POD may have given the Protestants the upper hand. For example, if Catherine de Médicis dies earlier--say, around 1561, when Gaspard de Coligny's influence at the royal court was strongest. Coligny had converted to Protestantism a few years earlier and had quickly become the chief advocate of the Huguenot faction.

Hrm. I sometimes think the Hugenots are a red herring; they never caught on in northern France, after all.
 
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