5.2.2. THE "SEASON" OF PROTESTANT MASSACRE

THE SAINT BARTHOLEMEW'S DAY MASSACRE STARTS IN PARIS IN THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 23, 1572

-- "Season:" term of Jules Michelet

It continues for several days there and for three months in other French towns.  

• The spark: queen Catherine de Medici incites the shooting of the Protestant leader so that his clan will take revenge on the dominant Catholics. The Protestant chief is wounded. The Catholic leader orders his thugs to storm the house where the wounded man is recovering. They attack him and throw his body out of the window.

Engraving of the time

• City authorities have been told of the planned assassination and have summoned a militia to maintain order. But when church bells toll to announce the fait accompli, it sides with the killers. Mobs join in.

-- Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy by Philippe Erlanger, 1960, the classic study 

 The Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre by François Dubois, 1572 / zoom

Catherine de Medici

 

The noble Protestant leaders have come for the wedding of the sister of the king (Charles IX) and the king of Béarn (later Henri IV). Many of them reside at the Louvre, as guests of the king. Except for Henri, a royal cousin and a man his bride saves, all are murdered.

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Civil war spreads to most towns and to the countryside. In rural areas atrocities are committed on both sides.

"Soldiers' Feast" (detail), tapestry, Renaissance museum, museum publication

Soldiers are mercenaries or men who join to pillage. A rape is happening in the background.

But urban victims are mainly Protestant: blood lust, theft and settling scores leads to killing Catholics too, but later and less often. 

A list of commoner victims of the massacre shows that they were "shoemakers, bookbinders, hatmakers, weavers, pin-makers, armor-makers, barrel makers, watchmakers, goldsmiths, furniture makers, gilders, button-makers, hardware makers, etc."

-- The 16th Century by Jules Michelet, 1833

A century later (in 1684), Louis XIV demands that Protestants convert. Fifty thousand  families slip out of the kingdom. Voltaire describes the loss to France.

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Detour: The tolling bells of Saint-Gervais, the royal church opposite the Louvre palace, set off the killings.

Zoom

The military transformation of the 1850's slated it for destruction. The man in charge (the Baron Haussmann), saved it: A Protestant, he did not want to be accused of vengeance.

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Why were Protestants so hated?

The iconoclasm of some Protestants

was not a factor in Paris,

where there had been no incidents since 1525.

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Next,

5.2.3.

Protestants separate themselves from everyone else