E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Drag’onades (3 syl.).
A series of religious persecutions by Louis XIV., which drove many thousand Protestants out of France. Their object was to root out “heresy;” and a bishop, with certain ecclesiastics, was sent to see if the heretics would recant; if not, they were left to the tender mercies of the dragoons who followed these “ministers of peace and goodwill to man.”
1
“France was drifting toward the fatal atrocities of the dragonade.”—F. Parkman: The Old Régime, chap. ix. p. 167.
