dragonner

A historical verb tied to a specific 17th-century policy: the dragonnades under Louis XIV, the forced billeting of dragoon soldiers in Protestant households to pressure them into converting to Catholicism — essentially a one-event historical term with no modern general use.

• Louis XIV fit dragonner les protestants du Poitou dès 1681. — Louis XIV had dragoons billeted on the Protestants of Poitou starting in 1681.
• Les intendants royaux dragonnaient les villages récalcitrants. — Royal intendants billeted dragoons on defiant villages.
• Les dragonnades se sont étendues au sud de la Loire à partir de 1685. — The dragonnades spread south of the Loire starting in 1685.

Not a verb learners will ever need productively — worth recognizing only in the context of French Reformation history, not as active vocabulary.

• politics Les dragonnades — Louis XIV's intendant René de Marillac launched the first dragonnades in Poitou in 1681, encouraged by war minister Louvois; the forced billeting of dragoons on Protestant households to coerce conversions spread south of the Loire by 1685 and directly preceded that year's Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked the Edict of Nantes.