Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the Dragonnades King Louis XIV was an absolutist monarch, meaning he had complete control of his kingdom. It is said that for rulers to have control, they must run a tightly-knit centralized government. For the king to achieve his goal of controlling a tightly-knit nation, he needed to unite the people under one religion and eliminate the aristocratic power. With a Protestant minority, Louis needed to eliminate this group and permit only Catholicism to be practiced in his nation. When King Louis XIV came to power in France, he sought religious unity. With the Protestants still a sizable portion of the population in France, he repealed the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and called the revocation the Edict of Fountainbleu. Louis’ advisors had stated he could only be saved if he eliminated the heresy so he had destroyed 570 Protestant churches out of the 810 that existed in France. He believed diversity of religion would lead to the downfall of France. Following the revocation, Protestantism was considered intolerable. Marriages were not recognized, children were deemed illegitimate, property rights and inheritances were affected. The revocation allowed for the destruction of Calvinist churches and schools. Children born to Protestant churches were baptized as Catholic and sent to Catholic Churches. Many were executed trying to resent their conversion.