In 1685. Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which meant that French Protestants were no longer safe. This resulted in about 200,000 Huguenot refugees leaving France and moving, among other places, to England. One of the places they landed was in Spitalfields. One of the things the Huguenot’s were good at was silk production. They produced silk in Spitalfields for the next 200+ years, with peaks from 1690-1760, and again from 1800-1820, but after that, the industry rapidly declined.

While Paris itself is mentioned only briefly when Henry is sent away, the spirit of Paris is ever-present in the story. The Swiss Peasant takes place as "the spirit of the French Revolution [is] awakening," and the revolutionary ideals of Louis are at the very heart of the tale. Not only do Louis' politics evoke the tumult in Paris, but the tone of the story is increasingly tense as class relations grow more contentious.