BARTHOWMEW, MASSACRE OF). How far the queen mother took advantage of the popular exasperation against the Huguenots, it is quite impossible to say. The legend that the king fired a shot by way of signal has been exploded, but it is probable that the sympathies of the court in favor of suppressing one or other of the factions were sufficiently strong to have led to active intrigue and it is equally probable that the popular feeling was let loose by the Crown.
Whatever the causes — and they will never be fully determined — the effect of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew was to make Protestant ism impossible as the national religion of the French.
But some years later the death of the re maining son of Catherine de Medici. brother and heir to Henry III, who since 1574 had been on the throne, left no male descendant of the Capetain house save Henry of Bourbon, the son of the king of Navarre, to whom he imme diately succeeded. Now the house of Navarre had, through the influence of Henry of Bour bon's mother, supported the Reformation: not in its moral aspect but as a piece of protest against the central authorities of Europe. Henry of Navarre had no great attachment to the sys tem on its political side, none on its theological, and an active dislike of it in its moral aspect. He was for his friends a hearty liver, for his enemies a libertine and above all a highly suc cessful soldier. The town of Paris under the influence of the family of Guise went so far in its hatred of the Reformation as to refuse the quite unchallengeable claim of Henry to the throne, because his name was connected with the Protestant side and because in the recent civil wars those who were now the members of his army had in the main been fighting for the Reformation. Under the authority of what was called '
In August 1589, that king was stabbed and killed by Jacques Clement. Henry IV, as Henry of Navarre must henceforth be called, was successful in the field, but was unable to take the capital; and his final admission within its walls must not be ascribed to purely military success. It was rather his personal character which gave him popularity in every circle he led, whether military or civil, his tenacity and the growing absurdity of the attempt to put a subject upon the throne, as well as the adhe sion of the remainder of the country, that slowly converted Parisian opinion. Henry IV
was ready to meet this process of conversion halfway. Within four years of Henry III's death (in July 1593), he abjured heresy at Saint Denis just outside the walls of the capital and next year was secretly admitted by night. The Pope accepted his reconciliation with the Church; he became immediately popular with the town of Paris and from this date begins his true reign over the French people.
The first and most turbulent period of the religious quarrel in France ends with the Edict of Nantes, signed by this monarch in 1598. It is a document of capital importance, the first of the three great steps by which modern religion has been affected in France. These three steps are: The Edict of Nantes, its revocation less than a century after it was promulgated; and the virtual secularization of the state by the French Revolution. This last, or the third step, in its turn has been followed by a reaction toward Catholicism.
The Edict of Nantes was remarkable in sev eral ways: It was the first and almost the only document to grant religious toleration in its time. For three generations during which it was death to say mass in Protestant England, a Protestant in Catholic France enjoyed all the facilities of a citizen and many special privileges as well. The principle was recognized that if a religion alien to the body of citizens was toler ated at all, it must be tolerated as a privileged and exceptional thing. The Huguenot body, which was then somewhat more numerous than it is to-day and may have amounted to 5 per cent of the population, was not only permitted to hold any office but was allowed to organize its family life, to hold gatherings at regular intervals; to decide upon the attitude which it should maintain toward the rest of the State; and even to possess special towns as its places of refuge. The settlement was not wholly suc cessful, as will be seen by what follows; but though it worked under an increasing strain, was not definitely put aside until the reign of Louis XIV; and the two other generations dur ing which it was in vigor nourished, the small but wealthy Huguenot body, permitted it to strike deep roots and to become what it still is, though it has dwindled in numbers — a powerful distinct element in the midst of the French state.