History of France

The watershed event during these wars was clearly the Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. After the peace treaty of St. Germain (the Third War), Catherine de’ Medici exerted a great deal of diplomatic effort trying to create harmony between Catholic and Protestant leaders. Admiral de Coligny, now the chief military leader of the Huguenots, was welcomed into the king’s council, Elizabeth of England entertained the prospects of marriage to one of King Charles’ younger brothers, and Catherine negotiated with Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, to marry her daughter Margeurite (Margot) to Henri de Navarre, the ranking Huguenot prince of the blood. However, the common people felt no such harmony, and tensions grew in the towns and countryside.

Protestant rhetoric had become increasingly revolutionary in the late 60’s, with leading thinkers advocating that Christians did not have the obligation to obey leaders who themselves defied God. Calvin himself came to the conclusion, after advocating for many years that obedience to the civil authorities was a Christian duty, that a prince that persecuted the church had forfeited his right to be obeyed. François Hotman’s Francogallia was written during this time (although not published until 1573). It advocated the existence of a mythical Frankish constitution whereby the kings of France were elected by the people and governed only through their consent. This was all very frightening and served to unite the Protestant faith with treason in the mind of the average person.

Along with these more abstract issues, tension between Catholics and Protestants had more economic and social elements. Protestants were often represented in the newer and more lucrative trades, such as printing, out of proportion to their numbers in the general population. The Protestant emphasis on literacy as the basis for understanding the Bible made for a generally better educated group. Protestantism was more an urban than a rural phenomenon (except in the Southwest), one well-suited to capitalists and merchants. For example, the 100 or so Catholic feast days that they didn’t celebrate made for more days to do business. This wasn’t viewed as being much of an advantage by the peasants, but was viewed as an unfair advantage by other Catholic townsmen.

The years of persecution had created a cell-like structure of congregations, consistories, and synods where people in the group stuck together and helped each other, both in matters of religion and everyday business. Like that other minority in Europe, the Jews, this engendered a feeling of suspicion about their “secret” organization.
The participation of women in the church service, with men and women singing together and studying the Bible, was viewed with a range of emotions: from a sign that society was collapsing when cobblers and women could debate the meaning of the Bible (even the Protestants were sometimes alarmed at the effects of their doctrine about “the priesthood of all believers”), to a conviction that Protestant worship must involve some kind of orgiastic rituals.

Prices had also risen very sharply between the beginning of the century and the 1560s, especially the prices of food, fuel, and shelter. This might seem irrelevant to matters of religion, but the sense of stress about making ends meet, increasing homelessness and poverty in the towns, a sense of anxiety about the future, and all the other things that go with this kind of economic pressure make for a fearful and hostile society looking for scapegoats.

Many Catholics felt that the toleration of heresy in their midst was like a disease in the body of Christ that threatened the very contract between God and his people. There was an increasing rhetoric among the popular preachers to purge this infection to restore God’s favor and with it, social stability.

All of this tension is important background to the watershed event of the wars: the evening of August 23, 1572 — the feast of St. Bartholomew. The 19 year-old Henri de Navarre and Margot de Valois were married in Paris on August 17 and the festivities were still going on. The entire Huguenot leadership came to Paris for this wedding. Henri himself brought 800 mounted noblemen in his train.

On August 22, as Admiral de Coligny was returning to his lodgings from a visit with the king, an assassin fired at him, breaking his arm and wounding him severely, but not killing him outright. The Huguenots were outraged and demanded justice from the king. Everyone suspected the Guises of the attack. When various Huguenot leaders counseled Coligy to flee the city — certainly at this time they could have easily made it to the safety of a Protestant stronghold — he reputedly refused, feeling that it would show a lack of trust in the king. However, the Huguenots were threatening riot in the streets if something wasn’t done, and it was a very hot summer.

At some point during the night of August 23, the decision was made at the Louvre to kill Coligny and the Huguenot leaders gathered around him. Charles IX was certainly there, Catherine de’ Medici, Henri d’Anjou. It may not have been originally intended to be a general massacre. Charles IX was reputedly badgered into this decision by Catherine and his councilors, and when he finally broke he is alleged to have said, “Well, then kill them all that no man be left to reproach me.”

During the early hours of Sunday morning, a troop of soldiers came to Coligny’s door. They killed the guard that opened the door, and rushed through the house. Coligny was dragged from his bed, stabbed, and thrown out the window to the pavement below. Reputedly the Duc de Guise mocked the body, kicking him in the face and announcing that this was the king’s will. Rumors ran thick and fast, and somehow the militia and the general population went on a rampage, believing themselves to be fully sanctioned by the king and the church.

Catholics identified themselves with white crosses on their hats, and went around butchering their neighbors. The neighborhood militias played a very significant role in the slaughter. The killing went on for 3 days or so, with the city councilors and the king unable to bring the whole thing under control. There are numerous tales of atrocities, occasional ones of courage and compassion. Historians have debated what really happened and why in excruciating detail ever since.

The Louvre itself was not immune. Henri de Navarre slept in his bridal suite with an entourage of 40 Huguenot gentlemen, all of whom were killed. Henri and his cousin, the Prince de Condé (another Henri, the son of the late Louis who had been the champion of the churches), were dragged before the king and threatened with death if they did not convert. They did, and Navarre became a prisoner of the court for the next four years, living in constant fear of his life.

The massacres spread to the provinces over the next few months. Some thought they had directives from the crown to kill all the Protestants, others thought there was no such thing. The actions of the governors and mayors depended very much on the individuals and the circumstances in their areas. Areas with vocal Protestant minorities often suffered the most.

The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, as it came to be known, destroyed an entire generation of Huguenot leadership. Henri de Navarre was a prisoner, not yet a known quality as a leader. Condé eventually escaped to Germany, and Andelot, Coligny’s younger brother, was an exile in Switzerland. Although it wasn’t clear at the time, this was the beginning of the decline of the Protestant church in France. In spite of the wars, the ’60s had seen an enthusiastic growth in the movement. Over the months following, many Protestants despaired and abjured their faith. The experience radicalized many of the survivors, creating a profound distrust of the king, an unwillingness to disarm, and an upsurge in the political rhetoric of resistance. Works with titles like The Defense of Liberty against Tyrants were to come off the Huguenot presses.

The Huguenot “state within a state” became solidified, as the churches organized themselves into an efficient hierarchy for communications and self-protection. They collected their own tithes, maintained their own armies and garrisons, and provided for the governance and social welfare of the Protestant communities.

Henry III’s Catholic son, Duc d’Anjou, died in 1584 and Henri de Navarre (a Huguenot) became heir presumptive to the throne of France. The Catholicity of the crown and the special sacral role of “The Most Christian King” were principles widely assumed to be fundamental to the constitution of France. Thus, the threat of a Protestant accession to the crown was very disturbing. The pope, Sixtus V, immediately excommunicated Navarre and his cousin, Henri Prince de Condé, declaring that as heretics they were unfit for the throne. Guise revived the Catholic League with the goal of preventing any heretic from coming to the throne.

The Treaty of Nemours, signed in 1585, revoked all the previous edicts of pacification: banning the practice of the reformed religion throughout the kingdom, declaring Protestants unable to hold royal office, ordering all garrisoned towns to be evacuated, and requiring all Protestants to abjure their faith within six months or be exiled.

The League pressed for a meeting of the Estates-General, which was held in Blois in the fall. Their proposed heir to the crown was the Cardinal de Bourbon, Navarre’s uncle. On Christmas Eve in 1588, when Guise was at Blois for the meetings, Henri III invited him to his quarters for some discussion where Guise was assassinated. The same fate was visited on his brother, the Cardinal de Guise. This cut the two best heads from the house of Guise, but it still left the younger brother, the Duc de Mayenne, who now became leader of the League.

The League sent an army against Henri III, and Henri III turned to Navarre for an alliance. The two kings joined forces to reclaim Paris. In July 1589, in the royal camp at St. Cloud, a monk named Jacques Clément begged an audience with the king and put a long knife into his spleen. At first it was thought the king might recover, but the wound festered. On his deathbed, Henri III called for Navarre and named him his heir.

The League continued to fight and Henry IV did not fare well. At this point, Henri IV made his “perilous leap” and abjured his faith in July 1593, in the church of St. Denis, reputedly with the famous witticism that “Paris is worth a mass.” A coronation was arranged for him at Chartres, rather than at the traditional Reims, which was in the hands of the League. This was a blow to the League, as it removed the chief objection of many of the more moderate Catholics to Henri IV. Many people did not trust the conversation, including the Protestants who hoped it was not for real. Still, some of Henri’s hardcore Protestant supporters withdrew from him. In the end, he won over enough moderate Catholics to strengthen his position.

Finally, in the spring of 1594, Henri IV entered Paris without firing a shot, and the Spanish garrison marched out. It wasn’t over yet, but Henri was now in possession of his capital. He began a vigorous program of winning over the support of moderate Catholics with a combination of charm, force, money, and promises. A great deal of money was spent guaranteeing various nobles pensions and positions in exchange for the support, and a great deal of money was given to the towns in exchange for theirs.