Saint Bartholomew's Eve: One of The Biggest Massacres In Reformation History

436 years ago yesterday, thousands of French Huguenots were mass murdered in Paris at the hands of the Roman Catholics.

Catherine de Medicis' daughter, Margaret of France (Marguerite de Valois), had married Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France), who himself was a Huguenot, on August 18, 1572. Huguenots from all parts of France had come for the wedding. It was hoped that this wedding would be an act of conciliation between the rival religious parties, and end the warring between the Catholics and Protestants of France. Instead of a time for celebration, this would rapidly become a time of mourning for Protestants all over Europe.

Catherine had agreed to a plot hatched by the Guise family to assassinate Admiral Coligny, one of the leaders of the Huguenot party who had an influence over the king, Charles IX, her son. Providentially, the plot, attempted only a few days after the wedding and while the guests were still assembled, failed and only wounded the Admiral. Catherine was eager to complete the murder of Coligny and more, but anxious to hide her role in the scheme. She met in secret with her Italian advisers and Baron de Retz at the Palace of Tuileries to plan the massacre of all the unsuspecting Huguenots still celebrating in Paris.

On the night of August 23, the Catholics gathered at the Louvre and were given their instructions, to slaughter all the Huguenots! Just as the day broke on August 24, the massacre began. The Huguenots were pulled out of their beds and brutally murdered by the Catholic mob. Admiral Coligny was among the first to be murdered. Henry de Guise, one of the instigators of the massacre, oversaw the murder of Admiral Coligny, and made sure that the "heretics" had finally been crushed.

The next day the King issued a royal decree to stop the killing, but the massacre just grew. The blood lust of the Catholics spread all over France. The estimates of the number of Huguenots murdered has varied from 2,000, given by a Roman Catholic apologist, to 70,000, given by the Huguenot Duke de Sully, who himself barely escaped death. Historians today say that 3,000 were murdered in Paris alone.^[1]

In future years the Pope (Pope Gregory XIII) ordered a Te Deum to be sung as a "special thanksgiving" for the massacre. He also had a medal struck with the motto Ugonottorum Strages 1572 ("Slaughter of the Huguenots") with an angel bearing a cross and sword beside the slaughtered Protestants. ^[2] Paintings were commissioned and poems written to remember the "glorious execution". This is just a glimpse of the atrocities against the French Protestants.

To study the massacre in more depth, you can get G.A. Henty's book on the subject, Saint Bartholomew's Eve, here at Vision Forum. Another good resource is the Encyclopedia Britannica's article on the subject. To listen to the recent radio show that I did with Mr. Bill Potter and Mr. Adam McManus you can click here.