St. Bartholomew Day

The War of Religions

1568

he Guise family ignited the First war of religion in 1562 when they massacred Protestant worshipers and it lasted until 1564, in a stalemate. There were two more wars the second in 1567-68 and the third 1568-70, they were all bloody stalemates.

Reactions

1572

The Politiques, those Catholics who placed national unity above sectarian interests, were horrified, but many Catholics inside and outside France initially regarded the massacres as deliverance from an imminent Huguenot coup d'etat. The severed head of Coligny was apparently dispatched to Pope Gregory XIII, though it got no further than Lyon, and the pope sent the king a Golden Rose.

converting

1572

After the massacre the king made a law that you had to convert to catholic. The religious tensions still remained high.

Huguenots fail

1572

This season of blood—known as the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre—decisively ended Huguenot hopes to transform France into a Protestant kingdom. It remains one of the most horrifying episodes in the Reformation era.

Leaders of both religions

1572

The Catholics were led by the Guise family, who believed that the Huguenots were heretics that should be exterminated.[2] The Huguenots by the Admiral Coligny and Henri of Navarre.

The massacre

1572

This was the third war in the War of Religions. this was the bloodiest war there was in this time period.

The weakening of the Huguenots

1572

The massacres greatly weakened the Huguenot cause. The entire leadership of the French Protestants was either killed or arrested. The loss of Admiral Coligny was a particular blow to the French Protestant cause. The Huguenots were all but leaderless for some time.

Debate

1572

Historians have long debated the causes of the massacres of 1572. Drawing upon Francis Hotman's De Furoribus Gallicis (1573), Protestant interpreters since the sixteenth century have often portrayed Coligny and his coreligionists as heroic victims of a premeditated plot to destroy the Huguenot movement, masterminded by the wicked queen mother, Catherine de Médicis.

St Germain

Aug 18, 1572

Coligny and the leading Huguenots remained in Paris to discuss some outstanding grievances about the Peace of St. Germain with the king.

Leading marriage

Aug 22, 1572

The impending marriage led to the gathering of a large number of well-born Protestants in Paris. But Paris was a violently anti-Huguenot city, and Parisians, who tended to be extreme Catholics, found their presence unacceptable.

The failure of the massacre

Aug 22, 1572

The Guise plan was to kill or arrest the Huguenot leadership not a wholesale massacre of Protestants. If the French Huguenot leaders such as Conde, Coligny and Henry Navarre were eliminated or detained, it was expected that the French Protestant cause would be at least weakened or even fatally wounded.

Discussion of the massacre

Aug 23, 1572

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.

Start of St. Bartholomew's Day

Aug 24, 1572

St. Bartholomew's Day started on the night of the 23rd of August. It started with the attempted assassination on protestant leaders.

Death Toll

Aug 24, 1572

There were 70,000 people that died in the massacre.t here were 20,000-30,000 non-religious people that died.

Assassination

Aug 24, 1572

The attempted assassination of Consoling riggered the massacre.
This happened to days after his wedding.

Huguenots

Aug 24, 1572

The Huguenots where protestants. They had a grudged against the Catholics. Their leader was Admiral Gaspard de Coligny.

Congily

Aug 24, 1572

Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was brutal beaten and thrown out his window on the dawn of the 24 of August. the reason was he drew up a killing list.

What it was

Aug 24, 1572

St. Bartholomew day happened in France. it was considered a Civil War.

Catholic mobs

Aug 24, 1572

The actions of the Royal Guard inspired Catholic mobs to form and they attacked and murdered any Protestant they could find. There had been no plan for a general massacre of Huguenots but events seemed to have spiraled out of control.

further tensions

1573

Tensions were further raised when in May 1572. The news reached Paris that a French Huguenot army under Louis of Nassau had crossed from France to the Netherlandish province of hainaut and captured the Catholic strongholds of Mons and valenciennes