5.3.2. THE "SEASON" OF PROTESTANT MASSACRE

THE SAINT BARTHOLEMEW'S DAY MASSACRE STARTS IN PARIS AND FOR THREE MONTHS CONTINUES IN OTHER FRENCH TOWNS 

-- "Season:" Term of Jules Michelet

It starts in the night of August 23, 1572. 

Queen Catherine de Medici wants to play off noble clans by having the Protestant leader shot to blame the dominant Catholic clan and incite Protestant revenge. But he is only 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 that an assassination is planned and to summon a militia to maintain order. When church bells toll to announce the fait accompli, they join the killers.

-- Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy par Philippe Erlanger, 1960, le récit classique 

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

The queen

 

Both sides commit atrocities in the countryside, because the armies attract the same kind of men...

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

Soldiers are mercenaries or pillagers, men cut off from the land and its rules. 

...but urban victims are mainly Protestant. Blood lust, theft and score-settling leads to striking Catholics too, but less often and later.

Why?

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

 

Zoom

The city's military transformation in the 1850's had slated it for destruction, as were all the medieval churches in that turbulent area. The man in charge (the Baron Haussmann), saved it: A Protestant, he did not want to be faulted for taking revenge. 

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Next,

5.3.3.

 Catholic communities where people intertwine