Bartholomew, MASSACRE OF ST

Bartholomew, MASSACRE OF ST (Fr. La St-Barthélemy), the appellation given to the massacre of the Huguenots in Paris on the night of St Bartholomew's Day, 24th August 1572. After the death of Francis II. in 1560, Catharine de' Medici assumed the management of affairs, as regent for her son, Charles IX., and showed throughout a more than Italian craft and faithlessness, as well as a cruelty almost without parallel in modern history. In order to annoy the Catholic party of the Duke Francis of Guise, she granted an edict of toleration to the Reformed, at whose head was the Prince of Condé. Both parties took up arms, and there ensued a war which lasted for eight years, the cruelties of which, through mutual exasperation, are almost incredible. Guise was assassinated, and Condé was taken prisoner in the battle of Jarnac and shot (1569). His nephew, young Henry of Bearn, afterwards Henry IV., then became leader of the Huguenots, along with Admiral Coligny. It was not till the strength of both sides was exhausted, that the peace of St Germain-en-Laye was concluded in 1570, whereby the Huguenots obtained the free exercise of their religion. Catharine de' Medici now expressed much friendliness towards them, and even endeavoured to lull them into negligence by the marriage of the youthful Henry of Bearn with her daughter Margaret, 18th August 1572. Admiral Coligny was drawn to Paris, and the king not only made him costly presents, but gave him an important office in the council of state. It was all the basest hypocrisy. When, by means of the marriage of Prince Henry, the most eminent of the Huguenots had been allured to Paris, Admiral Coligny was wounded by a shot from a window of the palace on 22d August 1572. The king, indeed, hastened to him, and swore to avenge him; but, on the very same day, the king was persuaded by his mother that the admiral sought his life. 'By God's death!' he exclaimed, 'let the admiral be slain, and not him only, but all the Huguenots, till not one remains that can give us trouble!' That night Catharine held a council, and appointed St Bartholomew's Day for carrying into effect the long-contemplated massacre. After Coligny had been murdered, a bell in the tower of the royal palace, at the hour of midnight, gave the signal to the assembled companies of citizens for a general massacre of the Huguenots, in which it is estimated that over 4000 perished. The king himself is popularly represented as having fired from his palace upon those that were fleeing past. The Prince of Condé and the king of Navarre only saved their lives by going to mass, and appearing to conform to the Catholic church. The provinces were at the same time summoned to similar slaughter; and although in some of them the officials were ashamed to publish the murderous commands which had been transmitted to them, there were found bloodthirsty fanatics enough, who perpetrated the greatest horrors for several weeks together in almost all the provinces, so that it was reckoned that 30,000 (some authorities make the number 70,000) persons were murdered. The pope celebrated the events of St Bartholomew's Day by a procession to the church of St Louis, a grand Te Deum, the striking of a medal, and the proclamation of a year of jubilee. Yet the crime was useless. The Huguenots had lost their chiefs, but, the first moment of stupor past, they took up arms with all the fury of despair. The royal troops were once more foiled in their attempts to take Rochelle; and Charles found himself forced to grant liberty of conscience to the Huguenots, at the very moment in which he was receiving for the massacre the enthusiastic congratulations of the courts of Rome and Spain. See White's Massacre of St Bartholomew (1867), and the works cited at HUGUENOTS.