Having failed to crush the Protestants in the open field Catharine, now sought to accomplish her object by treachery and by a general massacre. In her artful way she contrived a marriage between her own daugh- ter Margaret of Valois, sister of the king, and Henry of
Beam, king of Navarre, the proclaimed leader of the Huguenots. Jeanne d'Albret, the mother of Henry of Beam, and even the admiral Coligny, heartily concur- red in tlie projected union, in the hope that it would be an important step towards a close of the old feud ; Ijut many of the Protestant leaders mistrusted Catharine's intentions, especially after her late attcmjit to assassi- nate Coligny, and they felt inclined to witlidraw. Xnne the less, as the preparations for the royal nuptials were in progress, the Reformers took courage, and resorted in large numbers to Paris to celebrate the great, and to them so promising, event. Catharine now felt that her favorable moment had come. On the day after the marriage, which liad been celebrated with great jiomp, and was followed by a succession offcasts and ga_\-<ties, in which the iirincijinl members (if the nobility, Protes- tant as well as Romanist, were iiarticiiiatiiig, and >vhile the fears of tlic Huguenots were completely disarmed, a private council was held by Catharine and the king, in which it was decided that on a given night all the Prot- estants should be miu'dered, witli the exception of Hen- ry of Beam and the young prince of Cond*'. Eor the head of Coligny the king offered a special price of 5(1,000 crowns; but the attempt made upon his life failed to prove fatal to Coligny, and the lij^iocritical Charles even professed sorrow for the injury lie sustained. See Coligny. The night of August 24, 1572, was apjioint- ed for the massacre. About twilight in the morning of the 24th, as the great bell of the church of St. (;cr- main was ringing for early prayers, to open the festi- val of St. Bartholomew's day, Charles, his mother, and the duke of Anjou sat in a chamber of tJie palace to give the signal for the massacre. A pistol-shot fired from one of the windows of the palace called out 300 of the royal guard, who, wearing, to distinguish themselves in the darkness, a white sash on the left arm and a white cross in their hats, rushed out into the streets, shouting " For God and the king !" and commenced the most perfidious butcliery recorded in history. The houses of the Huguenots were broken in, and all who could be found murdered, the king himself firing from his windows on those who passed in the street. Some 5000 Huguenots, among them their great and noble leader, the admiral Coligny (q. v.), were thus killed in Paris ; while many Roman Catholics met with the same fate at the hands of jiersonal enemies, under tlie jilca of their being inclined to Protestantism. The next day orders were sent to the governors of the provinces to follow the example of the cajtital. A few only had the manliness to resist this order, and in the sjiace of sixty days some 70,000 persons were murdered in the prov- inces. See Bartholomew's Day. Those who es- caped took refuge in the mountains and at La Rochelle. Henry of Navarre was compelled to sign a recantation. The prince of Conde became a Roman Catholic, and Charles IX declared in Parliament that Protestantism was extinct in France. '• Catliarine dc Jledicis wrote in triumph to Alva fthe igiumiinious commmander of Philip's troops in the Netherlands), to Philip II of Spain, and to the pope, of the results of the three days' dreadful work at Paris. When Pliilip heard of the massacre, he is said to have laughed for the first and only time in his life. Rome was thrown into a delirium of joy at the news. The cannon were fired at St. An- gelo; Gregory XIH and his cardinals went in jirocession from sanctuary to sanctuary to give God thanks for the massacre. The sulyect was ordered to be painted, and a medal was struck to celebrate the atrocious event, with the pope's head on one side, and on the otlier an angel, with a cross in one hand and a sword in the other, pursuing and slaying a band of flying lieretics. The legend it bears, ' Ugonottontm. Strcif/es. 1572,' briefiy e|)it- omizes the terrible stor\\" The festival of St. Barthol- omew was also ordered" to be yearly celebrated in com- memoration of the event. Not satisfied with these demonstrations at Rome, Gregory sent cardinal Orsini ou a special mission to Paris to congratulate the king
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His passage was through Lyons, where 1800 persons had been killed, the bodies of many of whom had been throAvn into the Rhone to horrify the dwellers near that river below the city (Smiles, Ifur/ucnots, p. 60).
Although deprived so suddenly of their leaders, and greatly weakened by the slaughter of great numbers of their "best and bravest men, the Protestants gathered together in their strong places, and prepared to defend themselves by force against force. " In the Cevennes, Dauphiny, and other cpiarters, they betook themselves to the mountains for refuge. In the plains of the south fifty towns closed their gates against the royal troops. Wlierever resistance was possible it showed itself." Thus opened the fourth irar of the Jluguerwts. The duke of j\njou, at tlie head of the Komanists, marched against the forts in the liands of the Huguenots. He attacked La Rochelle, but was repulsed, and obliged to retire from the siege, after losing nearly his whole army. The duke of Anjou becoming king of Poland, peace was concluded June 24, 1573, and the Protestants received as security the towns of INIontauban, Nimes, and La Ro- chelle, besides enjoying freedom of conscience, though not of worship, througliout the kingdom. Charles IX falling ill, the so-called Conspiration des politiques was formed by the Huguenots, with a section of the Roman Catholic nobility, to depose the queen and the Guises, and to place on the throne the chief of the Romanists, the duke of Alen9on, the j-oungest son of Catharine and of Francis II, who, from political motives, made common cause with the Huguenots. The leaders made arrange- ments with Henry of Navarre and the prince of Conde, Protestant princes, for the humiliation of Austria, and only a premature rising of the Protestants defeated the plan. Some of the conspirators were executed, D'Alen- ^on and Henry of Navarre were arrested, and Conde fled to German)', where he retimied to Protestantism, saj-ing that his abjiu-ation had been obtained from him by violence.