Catharine, having failed to overthrow the Protestant cause in the open field, sought to accomplish her object by treachery, and by a general massacre of Protestants on St. Bartholomew's day (q.v.) 1572. Although deprived of their leaders, and weakened by the slaughter of great numbers of their best and bravest., the Protestants flew to arms. The duke of Anjou, after having lost his army before Rochelle. took advantage of his election to the throne of Poland, and on June 24, 1573, concluded a peace, by which the Protestants obtained the free exercise of their religion in their places of security, Mont auban, Nimes, and Rochelle, and a certain concession of liberty of conscience. A section of the Roman Catholic nobility, at whose head was the duke of Alencon, the youngest son of Catharine, from purely political motives, united with the Protestants in opposition to the government of the queen-mother and the Guises. Catharine, there fore, incited her third son, Henry III., who had now succeeded to the throne, immedi ately to recommence hostilities against the Protestants. But, contrary to all expecta tion, the Protestant cause was in the highest 'degree prosperous during the year 1575. A peace was concluded at Beaulieu on May 8, by which the Protestants were freed from all restrictions in the exercise of their religion, and obtained a number of places of security. The king also paid their German auxiliaries. The duke of Guise, thus frus trated in his political designs, originated a Catholic association, called the Holy League, at the head of which the king put himself in the assembly of the states at Blois, on Nov. 6, 1570, and then the sixth religious war began. Peace was, however, again concluded by the king himself at Bergerac, in Sept., 1577, on the former conditions; and Catharine; to diminish the power of the duke of Guise, entered into a private treaty with Henry of Navarre at Nome, by which several places of security were made over to the Prot estants. The terms of peace being violated by the court, Henry I., prince of Conde, son of Louis I., and, like his father, a leader of the Protestant party, commenced the seventh religious war (called the guerre des amoureux) in Nov., 1579, by the occupation of Lafere, and Henry of Navarre, in April, 1580, took Cahors. But Conde, having been driven out of Lafere by Matignon, and Henry of Navarre vanquished at Mont-Crabel by Biron, peace was concluded at Fleix, Nov., 1580.
There was now a comparatively long interval of repose till 1581, when, by the death of the duke of Anjou (formerly of Alencon), Henry of Navarre became heir to the throne of France. Hereupon Henry, duke of Guise, exerted himself for the revival of the league, entered into an alliance with Spain and the pope for the extirpation of heresy, declared the cardinal of Bourbon heir to the throne, and began hostilities against the Protestants. This war is commonly known as the "war of the three Henries." The king soon made terms with him, and- declared all the privileges of the Protestants to be forfeited. The Protestants, having obtained troops from Germany and money from England, entered on the eighth religious war, which was prosecuted with various success, Henry of Navarre commanding the Protestant army. The duke of Guise, in the midst of these troubles, grasped the whole power of the state. But his designs with regard to the throne having become very evident, the king caused him and his brother the cardinal to be assassinated at the assembly of the states at Blois in Sept., 1588. In less than a year, the king was himself assassinated by a monk named Jacques Clement, and Henry of Navarre succeeded to the throne, and signed the famous EDICT OF NANTES (see NANTES), April 13, 1598, by which the rights of the Protestants were established anti enlarged.
Under the reign of Henry IV., whose great minister, Sully, was himself a Prot estant, the Protestants lived in tranquillity. But when, during the minority of Louis XIII., Mary de' Medici, the queen of Henry IV., assumed the reigns of government, the independence Which the Protestants enjoyed stood too plainly in the way of a court bent upon absolutism. The king, indeed, took an oath in 1614 to maintain the edict of Nantes, but the marriage treaties with the Spanish court excited the apprehensions of the Protestants to such a degree that, in Nov., 1615, they made common cause with the prince of Cond6. who had then set up the standard of rebellion. This they did con
trary to the advice of the most sagacious of their own party. Although by the treaty of Loudun, May 4, 1616, they obtained a new confirmation of their freedom of worship, the court now only waited for an opportunity of breaking at least their political power. In June, 1617, a royal edict commanded the entire suppression at once of the Prot estant church, and of political privileges, in the province of Warn; but the provincial court at Pan refused to register the edict, and the matter lay over till 1620, when, at the instigation of the Jesuits, and of his favorite Dc Luynes, the king carried the edict into full effect by force of arms. The Protestants throughout all France took alarm, and hostilities again broke out in May, 1691. At the head of the Protestants were the two brothers, the duke of Bohan and the prince Soubise. Their cause, however, was feebly maintained; almost all the Protestant towns fell into the hands of the king, force, stratagem, and bribery being equally employed. At last, after the capitulation of Montpellier, Oct. 21, 1622, there followed a general peace, by which the edict of Nantes was confirmed, but the right of prohibiting the assemblies of the Protestants was assumed on the part of the crown. The court, however, paid little attention to the stipulations of the treaty, and when the government was involved in difficulties in Italy, the Protestants took the opportunity again to rise in arms. Soubise, with a fleet furnished by the town of Rochelle, oftener than once defeated the weak royal navy. Cardinal Richelieu (q,v,), who was now at the helm of affairs, found himself under the necessity of making offers of pacification, which were rejected. Hereupon the cardinal resolved upon the capture of Rochelle, the most important stronghold of the Protestants. This be accomplished after a heroic resistance by the inhabitants. The fall of Rochelle was speedily followed by that of Nimes, Montauban. Castres, and all the other Protestant strongholds. Now left defenseless, the Protestants were entirely dependent on the will of the court, which, however, made•no attempt to deprive•ti(ein,of .thch.7-.liberty of con science. It was Lonig XIV., when he became SuperstitionS-fiHriWad age, who, at the instigation of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor Lachaise, commenced anew the persecution of the Protestants. He gradually deprived them of their equal civil rights, and endeavored to put down the Protestant church altogether. Bodies of troops. accom panied by monks, passed through the southern provinces, compelling the inhabitants to renounce their religion, demolishing the places of worship, and putting to death the preachers. Hundreds of thousands of Protestants fled to Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, and Germany. In vain was it attempted to restrain this self-expatriation by cordons along the borders. Many Protestants also made an insincere profession of Roman Catholicism. These, on the slightest appearance of relapse, were put to death. Ou Oct. 23, 1685, Louis at last revoked the edict of Nantes. (See Rulhiere, Eelaireisse moats Historiques sue les Causes de la Revocation de redit de .Nantes, 2 'vols. Pails, 1788.) Hereupon began a new flight, followed by a still more fearful persecution of the Prot estants. Their marriages were declared null; their children deprived of the right of inheritance, and forcibly shut up in convents; their preachers indiscriminately put to death. From the vicinity of Nimes. where they had always been very numerous, thou sands betook themselves to the mountains of the Cevennes, and continued the exercise of their religion in secret. Amongst these and the mountaineers of the Cevennes, a remarkable fanatical enthusiasm displayed itself, and, under the vane of Camisards, they maintained for a number of years a wonderfully successful opposition to the forces of the great monarchy. The Win' of the Cevennes (q.v.), or Conthard ll'ar, was not termi nated till 1706, the suppression of the local rebellion being attended with circumstances of greitt cruelty. France had lost by this time more than a million of her most active, enterprising, and industrious citizens and, notwithstanding all the persecutions, about two millions continued to adhere to the Protestant religion.