This settlement only applied to the "clergy of France," that is to say, to the clergy of those districts which were united to the crown before the end of the 16th century. The provinces annexed later, called _pays etrangers_, or _pays conquis_, had in this matter, as in many others, an arrangement of their own. At last, under Louis XV. the edict of 1749, _concernant les etablissements et acquisitions des gens de mainmorte_, was completely effective in subordinating the acquisition of property by ecclesiastical establishments to the consent and control of the crown, rendering them incapable of acquiring real property by bequests. At the end of the 16th century a wise law had been made which, in spite of the traces which it bore of past struggles, had established a reasonable balance among the Christians of France. The edict of Nantes, in 1598, granted the Protestants full civil rights, liberty of conscience and public worship in many places, and notably in all the royal _bailliages_. The Catholics, whose religion was essentially a state religion, had never accepted this arrangement as final, and at last, in 1685, under Louis XIV., the edict of Nantes was revoked and the Protestant pastors expelled from France. Their followers were forbidden to leave the country, but many succeeded nevertheless in escaping abroad. The position of those who remained behind was peculiar. Laws passed in 1715 and 1724 established the legal theory that there were no longer any Protestants in France, but only _vieux catholiques_ and _nouveaux convertis_. The result was that henceforth they had no longer any regular civil status, the registers containing the lists of Catholics enjoying civil rights being kept by the Catholic clergy.