BARTHOLOMEW'S, MASSACRE OF SAINT (Fr. La Saint-Barthacmy; shorter for La Nu-it de Saint-Barthelemy, the night of Saint Ba•tholo mew). The massacre of the Huguenots, perpe trated on August 24-25, 1572, which grew out of the feud ill France between the House of Guise and the Catholics, on the one hand, and the House of C'on& and the Huguenots on the other. The long civil strife known as the 'Wars of Religion' had heels suspended by the Peace of Saint Ger main-en-Laye, and the Queen-regent, Catharine de' Medici. pretended to be intent on the restora tion of harmony, which was to be secured by a marriage alliance consummated on August 18, 1572, between young Henry of Navarre, the recog nized head of the Huguenot party, and her own daughter, Margaret. Catha•ine's real policy, however, was to play off one party against the other. She saw with jealousy the growing influ ence exercised over the King by Coligny, the chief of the Huguenot party; and the attempted as sassination of the latter, on August 22, was un doubtedly due to her orders. The wound was not fatal, but the act was accepted by Hugue nots and Catholics as the signal that peace was at an end. Both parties assumed a menacing attitude, and Catharine determined to strike first. Site secured the reluctant consent of her weak-minded son, Charles IX., in whose name she ruled, and appointed the night of Saint Bartholomew's Day for a general massacre of the Huguenots. From the totter of the royal palace, the signal was given for a carnival of blood, which lasted for several weeks and extended throughout France. The mortality cannot be determined with even approximate accuracy, as the different estimates, varying from 2000 to 100, 000, show. Coli,gny, sought out by Guise himself, was among the first to fall. 'the two young Huguenot princes, Conch> and llenry of Navarre, are said to have ransomed their lives by denying their religion. It is not likely, however, that this would have saved them, had not Catharine per ceived that their death would have reacted against her, by demoralizing the party opposed to Guise, and leaving him with unlimited power —a thing she had no intention of permitting.
Guise, although lie had been the chief instrument in carrying out the plot (having even trans gressed in one instance the command of the King in order to execute the work more thor oughly), was unwilling to assume the ignominy attached to it, and Catharine induced her son to acknowledge before the Parlenient his sole re sponsibility for the deed. The real part which the King took is hard to determine. Very re luctant at first to give his consent, he later, it is said, took a fiendish delight in the proceedings; Init. on the other hand, sonic would have it that he died with remorse for the massacre. The weak and wavering character of Charles IX. make it possible that both accounts are true in some degree. But whatever the other factors may have been, Catharine's imperative will and his own natural weakness leave little room for doubt at to the actual responsibility. The Pope solemnly celebrated the event as the deliverance for the Church in France from the machina tions of the Huguenots to overthrow the Catholic monarchy and religion. Many Huguenots sought refuge in the mountains of the south and in La Rochelle. That city was besieged by the Duke of Anjou, but upon his receiving the news of his election as King of Poland, he made an agreement, July 6, 1573. by which the King was to grant amnesty to the Huguenots and the right to exercise their religion in certain towns.
For further reference, consult: White, Massa cre of Saint Bartholomew (London. 1868) : Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France (New York. 1879-83) ; Baumgarten, Por der Bartholomausnaeht (Strassburg, IS82) ; Martin, Histoirc do France, Vol. IX. (Paris, 18(i3).; Duruy, Histoire de France, trans. by Carey. Vol. II. (New York, 1889) ; Due de Sully, Memoirs (London, 1856).