Editing St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (section)

==Massacres==
[[File:Huns 003.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Preparation for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Painting by [[Kārlis Hūns]] (1868).]]

===Paris===
The attempted assassination of Coligny triggered the crisis that led to the massacre. Admiral de Coligny was the most respected Huguenot leader and enjoyed a close relationship with the king, although he was distrusted by the king's mother. Aware of the danger of reprisals from the Protestants, the king and his court visited Coligny on his sickbed and promised him that the culprits would be punished. While the Queen Mother was eating dinner, Protestants burst in to demand justice, some talking in menacing terms.<ref>Garrisson, pp. 82–83, and Lincoln, p. 96, and Knecht (2001), p. 361</ref> Fears of Huguenot reprisals grew. Coligny's brother-in-law led a 4,000-strong army camped just outside Paris<ref name="Holt81"/> and, although there is no evidence it was planning to attack, Catholics in the city feared it might take revenge on the Guises or the city populace itself.

That evening, Catherine held a meeting at the [[Tuileries]] Palace with her Italian advisers, including [[Albert de Gondi]], Comte de Retz. On the evening of 23 August, Catherine went to see the king to discuss the crisis. Though no details of the meeting survive, Charles IX and his mother apparently made the decision to eliminate the Protestant leaders. Holt speculated this entailed "between two and three dozen noblemen" who were still in Paris.<ref>Holt (2005), p. 85.</ref> Other historians are reluctant to speculate on the composition or size of the group of leaders targeted at this point, beyond the few obvious heads. Like Coligny, most potential candidates for elimination were accompanied by groups of gentlemen who served as staff and bodyguards, so murdering them would also have involved killing their retainers as a necessity.

Shortly after this decision, the municipal authorities of Paris were summoned. They were ordered to shut the city gates and arm the citizenry to prevent any attempt at a Protestant uprising. The king's [[Swiss Guards|Swiss mercenaries]] were given the task of killing a list of leading Protestants. It is difficult today to determine the exact chronology of events, or to know the precise moment the killing began. It seems probable that a signal was given by ringing bells for [[matins]] (between midnight and dawn) at the church of [[Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois]], near the Louvre, which was the parish church of the kings of France. The Swiss mercenaries expelled the Protestant nobles from the Louvre Castle and then slaughtered them in the streets.
[[File:Debat-Ponsan-matin-Louvre.jpg|thumb|left|''One morning at the gates of the Louvre'', 19th-century painting by [[Édouard Debat-Ponsan]]. [[Catherine de' Medici]] is in black. The scene from Dubois (above) re-imagined.]]

In the [[Holy Innocents' Cemetery]], on 24 August at noon, a [[Crataegus|hawthorn bush]], that had withered for months, began to green again near an image of the Virgin. That was interpreted by the Parisians as a sign of divine blessing and approval to these multiple murders,<ref>{{Cite news |date=3 August 2007 |title=Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy : l'obsession de la souillure hérétique |language=fr |work=Le Monde.fr |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/ete-2007/article/2007/08/03/le-massacre-de-la-saint-barthelemy-l-obsession-de-la-souillure-heretique_941606_781732.html |access-date=22 December 2022}}</ref> and that night, a group led by Guise in person dragged Admiral Coligny from his bed, killed him, and threw his body out of a window. The terrified Huguenot nobles in the building initially put up a fight, hoping to save the life of their leader,<ref>Knecht (2001), p. 364. The site is now 144 [[Rue de Rivoli]], with a plaque commemorating the event, though both building and street layout postdate the 16th century. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A04E4DD1739E233A25752C2A9609C94669FD7CF New York Times on the plaque]</ref> but Coligny himself seemed unperturbed. According to the contemporary French historian [[Jacques Auguste de Thou]], one of Coligny's murderers was struck by how calmly he accepted his fate, and remarked that "he never saw anyone less afraid in so great a peril, nor die more steadfastly".<ref>{{cite book|last1=De Thou|first1=Jacques- Auguste|title=Histoire des choses arrivees de son temps|publisher=Boston: Ginn and Company}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2020}} 

The tension that had been building since the Peace of St. Germain now exploded in a wave of popular violence. The common people began to hunt Protestants throughout the city, including women and children. Chains were used to block streets so that Protestants could not escape from their houses. The bodies of the dead were collected in carts and thrown into the [[Seine]]. The massacre in Paris lasted three days despite the king's attempts to stop it. Holt concludes that "while the general massacre might have been prevented, there is no evidence that it was intended by any of the elites at court", listing a number of cases where Catholic courtiers intervened to save individual Protestants who were not in the leadership.<ref>Holt (2005 edn), pp. 88–91 (quotation from p. 91)</ref> Recent research by Jérémie Foa, investigating the [[prosopography]] suggests that the massacres were carried by a group of militants who had already made out lists of Protestants deserving extermination, and the mass of the population, whether approving or disapproving, were not directly involved.<ref>{{cite book |last=Foa |first=Jérémie |title=Tous ceux qui tombent. Visages du massacre de la Saint-Bethélemy |language=fr |trans-title=All Who Fall. Faces of the St. Bethlemy Massacre |date=2021 |publisher=La Découverte |isbn=978-2348057885}}</ref>

The two leading Huguenots, Henry of Navarre and his cousin the [[Henri I de Bourbon, prince de Condé|Prince of Condé]] (respectively aged 19 and 20), were spared as they pledged to convert to Catholicism; both would eventually renounce their conversions when they managed to escape Paris.<ref name="Dyer1861">{{cite book |last=Dyer |first=Thomas Henry |author-link=Thomas Henry Dyer |title=The history of modern Europe: from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the war in the Crimea in 1857 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ErgyAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA268 |access-date=28 March 2011 |year=1861 |publisher=John Murray |page=268}}</ref> According to some interpretations, the survival of these Huguenots was a key point in Catherine's overall scheme, to prevent the House of Guise from becoming too powerful.

On 26 August, the king and court established the official version of events by going to the [[Paris Parlement]]. "Holding a [[lit de justice]], Charles declared that he had ordered the massacre in order to thwart a Huguenot plot against the royal family."<ref name="Lincoln98">Lincoln, p. 98</ref> A jubilee celebration, including a procession, was then held, while the killings continued in parts of the city.<ref name="Lincoln98"/>

===Provinces===
{{main|St Bartholomew's Day massacre in the provinces}}
Although Charles had dispatched orders to his provincial governors on 24 August to prevent violence and maintain the terms of the 1570 edict,<ref name="Holt91">Holt (2005 ed.), p. 91</ref> from August to October, similar massacres of Huguenots took place in a total of twelve other cities: [[Toulouse]], [[Bordeaux]], [[Lyon]], [[Bourges]], [[Rouen]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Benedict |first=Philip |date=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N4hwtKRfj8UC&dq=%22St+Bartholomew%27s+day+Massacre%22+deaths&pg=PA128 |title=Rouen During the Wars of Religion |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=126 |isbn=0-521-54797-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-521-54797-0}}</ref>
[[Orléans]], [[Meaux]], [[Angers]], [[La Charité]], [[Saumur]], [[Gaillac]] and [[Troyes]].<ref>Holt (2005 ed.), p. 91. The dates are in Garrison, p. 139, who adds [[Albi]] to the 12 in Holt. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wfFDhvXCS90C&dq=St.+Bartholomew%27s+Day+massacre+Auger+Bordeaux&pg=PA144 online]</ref> In most of them, the killings swiftly followed the arrival of the news of the Paris massacre, but in some places there was a delay of more than a month. According to Mack P. Holt: "All twelve cities where provincial massacres occurred had one striking feature in common; they were all cities with Catholic majorities where there had once been ''significant'' Protestant minorities.... All of them had also experienced serious religious division... during the first three civil wars... Moreover seven of them shared a previous experience ... [they] had actually been taken over by Protestant minorities during the first civil war..."<ref name="Holt91"/>

[[File:Le Siege de La Rochelle par le Duc d Anjou en 1573.jpg|thumb|The [[Siege of La Rochelle (1572–1573)]] began soon after the St. Bartholomew massacre.]]
In several cases the Catholic party in the city believed they had received orders from the king to begin the massacre, some conveyed by visitors to the city, and in other cases apparently coming from a local nobleman or his agent.<ref>Holt (2005 ed.), pp. 93–94, and Benedict (2004), p. 127</ref> It seems unlikely any such orders came from the king, although the Guise faction may have desired the massacres.<ref>Benedict (2004), p. 127</ref> 

Apparently genuine letters from the [[Henry III of France|Duke of Anjou]], the king's younger brother, did urge massacres in the king's name; in [[Nantes]] the mayor fortunately held on to his without publicising it until a week later when contrary orders from the king had arrived.<ref>Knecht (2001), p. 367</ref> In some cities the massacres were led by the mob, while the city authorities tried to suppress them, and in others small groups of soldiers and officials began rounding up Protestants with little mob involvement.<ref>Knecht (2001), p. 368, though see Holt (2005), pp. 93–95 for a different emphasis</ref> In Bordeaux the inflammatory sermon on 29 September of a [[Jesuit]], Edmond Auger, encouraged the massacre that was to occur a few days later.<ref>("Emond" or "Edmond"). Garrison, pp. 144–45, who rejects the view that this "met le feu au poudres" (lit the powder) in Bordeaux. See also: Pearl, Jonathan L. (1998), ''The Crime of Crimes: Demonology and Politics in France, 1560–1620'', Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, p. 70, {{ISBN|978-0-88920-296-2}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=2TJeVkAMz5sC&dq=St.+Bartholomew%27s+Day+massacre+Auger+Bordeaux&pg=PA70 Google Books]</ref>

In the cities affected, the loss to the Huguenot communities after the massacres was numerically far larger than those actually killed; in the following weeks there were mass conversions to Catholicism, apparently in response to the threatening atmosphere for Huguenots in these cities. In Rouen, where some hundreds were killed, the Huguenot community shrank from 16,500 to fewer than 3,000 mainly as a result of conversions and emigration to safer cities or countries. Some cities unaffected by the violence nevertheless witnessed a sharp decline in their Huguenot population.<ref>Holt (2005 ed.), p. 95, citing Benedict (2004), pp. 127–132</ref> It has been claimed that the Huguenot community represented as much as 10% of the French population on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, declining to 7–8% by the end of the 16th century, and further after heavy persecution began once again during the reign of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]], culminating with the [[Revocation of the Edict of Nantes]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Hans J. |last=Hillerbrand |title=Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set}}</ref>

Soon afterward both sides prepared for a [[French Wars of Religion#The "fourth" war (1572–1573)|fourth civil war]], which began before the end of the year.

===Death toll===
[[File:Jost Amman, Gaspar de Coligny, 1573, NGA 3643 (cropped).jpg|thumb|''Bas de page'' detail from a portrait print of Coligny, [[Jost Amman]], 1573. Coligny is shot at left, and killed at right.]]
Estimates of the number that perished in the massacres have varied from 2,000 by a Roman Catholic apologist to 70,000 by the contemporary Huguenot [[Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully|Maximilien de Béthune]], who himself barely escaped death.<ref>''Saint Bartholomew's Day, Massacre of'' (2008) Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition, Chicago; [[Hardouin de Péréfixe de Beaumont]], Catholic [[Archbishop of Paris]] a century later, put the number at 100,000, but "This last number is probably exaggerated, if we reckon only those who perished by a violent death. But if we add those who died from wretchedness, hunger, sorrow, abandoned old men, women without shelter, children without bread,—all the miserable whose life was shortened by this great catastrophe, we shall see that the estimate of Péréfixe is still below the reality." G. D. Félice (1851). [https://books.google.com/books?id=ywIQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA217 ''History of the Protestants of France'']. New York: Edward Walker, p. 217.</ref> Accurate figures for casualties have never been compiled,<ref>The range of estimates available in the mid-19th century, with other details, are summarized by the Huguenot statesman and historian [[François Guizot]] in his [https://books.google.com/books?id=nbIWRyfAvq8C&dq=%22Kill+them+all%22+Batholomew&pg=PA351 ''A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume IV'']</ref> and even in writings by modern historians there is a considerable range, though the more specialised the historian, the lower they tend to be. At the low end are figures of about 2,000 in Paris<ref>Armstrong, Alastair (2003), ''France 1500–1715'', Heinemann, pp. 70–71 {{ISBN|0-435-32751-8}}</ref> and 3,000 in the provinces, the latter figure an estimate by [[Philip Benedict]] in 1978.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Benedict |first=Philip |author-link=Philip Benedict |title=The Saint Bartholomew's Massacres in the Provinces |journal=[[The Historical Journal]] |year=1978 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=205–225 |jstor=2638258 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00000510 |s2cid=159715479}}; cited by Holt (2005 ed.), p. 91, and also used by Knecht (2001), p. 366, and {{cite book |last=Zalloua |first=Zahi Anbra |date=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E_MYeI40zrEC&dq=%22St+Bartholomew%27s+day+Massacre%22+deaths&pg=PA152 |title=Montaigne And the Ethics of Skepticism |publisher=Rookwood Press |isbn=978-1-886365-59-9}}</ref> Other estimates are about 10,000 in total,<ref>Lincoln, p. 97 (a "bare minimum of 2,000" in Paris), and [[Gérard Chaliand|Chaliand, Gérard]]; [[Arnaud Blin|Blin, Arnaud]]; Schneider, Edward; Pulver, Kathryn; {{cite book |last=Browner |first=Jesse |date=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmpfgNqmVXYC&dq=%22St+Bartholomew%27s+day+Massacre%22+deaths&pg=PA89 |title=The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-24709-3}}, citing David El Kenz (2008), ''Guerres et paix de religion en Europe aux XVIe–XVIIe siecles''</ref> with about 3,000 in Paris<ref>Garrisson, p, 131; {{cite book |editor-link=Geoffrey Parker (historian) |editor-last=Parker |editor-first=G. |date=1998 |title=Oxford Encyclopedia World History |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford |isbn=0-19-860223-5 |page=585}}; and {{aut|[[Henry Chadwick (theologian)|Chadwick, H.]]}} & Evans, G.R. (1987), ''Atlas of the Christian Church'', Macmillan, London, {{ISBN|0-333-44157-5}} hardback, p. 113;</ref> and 7,000 in the provinces.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Brian Moynahan |last=Moynahan |first=B. |date=2003 |title=The Faith: A History of Christianity |publisher=Pimlico |location=London |isbn=0-7126-0720-X |page=456}}; [[John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton|Lord Acton]], who discusses the matter in some detail, found that "no evidence takes us as high as eight thousand", and found those contemporaries in the best position to know typically gave the lowest figures – ''[[s:Lectures on Modern History|Lectures on Modern History]]'', "[[s:Lectures on Modern History/The Huguenots and the League|The Huguenots and the League]]", pp. 162–163.</ref> At the higher end are total figures of up to 20,000,<ref>{{cite book |last=Perry |first=Sheila |date=1997 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HJ76gwN_pSwC&dq=%22St+Bartholomew%27s+day+Massacre%22+deaths&pg=PA5 |title=Aspects of Contemporary France |page=5 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-415-13179-7}}</ref> or 30,000 in total, from "a contemporary, non-partisan guesstimate" quoted by the historians [[Felipe Fernández-Armesto]] and D. Wilson.<ref>{{cite book |author1-link=Felipe Fernández-Armesto |last1=Fernández-Armesto |first1=F. |last2=Wilson |first2=D. |date=1996 |title=Reformation: Christianity and the World 1500–2000 |publisher=[[Bantam Press]] |location=London |isbn=0-593-02749-3 |pages=236–237}}</ref> 

For Paris, the only hard figure is a payment by the city to workmen for collecting and burying 1,100 bodies washed up on the banks of the Seine downstream from the city in one week. Body counts relating to other payments are computed from this.<ref>Garrisson, 131; see also [https://books.google.com/books?id=mAZkbMHlX7cC&dq=St.+Bartholomew%27s+Day+massacre+Seine+bodies&pg=PA429 the 19th-century historian Henry White], who goes into full details, listing estimates of other historians, which range up to 100,000. His own estimation was 20,000.{{cite book |last=White |first=Henry |title=The Massacre of St Bartholomew |year=1868 |location=London |publisher=John Murray |page=472}}</ref>

Among the slain were the philosopher [[Petrus Ramus]], and in Lyon the composer [[Claude Goudimel]]. The corpses floating down the [[Rhône]] from Lyon are said to have put the people of [[Arles]] off drinking the water for three months.<ref name="cathen">{{Catholic |first=Pierre-Louis-Théophile-Georges |last=Goyau |author-link=Georges Goyau |prescript= |wstitle=Saint Bartholomew's Day |volume=14}}</ref>