ORIGINS (of 58 front. J.-C. with 887)
Roman period
Mérovingiens
Carolingians
FEUDALITY (from 887 to 1483)
Any power of Feudality
Feudal royalty
Decline of Feudality
One Hundred Years old war
Ruin Feudality
MONARCHY (of 1483 to 1789)
Wars of Italy
Wars against the house of Austria
Wars of religion
Apogee of monarchical France
Decline of monarchy
THE REVOLUTION
Ruin Ancien Régime
The Republic
Empire
Assassination of Coligny. Coligny was one of the first victims of Saint-Barthélemy: German Besme entered his room with a band of stickers: "is this well you it admiral ? "-" It is me, answered Coligny without disturbing itself, do what you will want; for a long time I am ready to die "Besme plunged to him his sword in the chest in blasphémant." Besme, shouted the duke of Own way, which had remained in the street, Besme, is this finished ? "-" It is fact "answered the assassin. - "it by the window Throws that I see it" Besme obeys, and Own way had the infamy to insult its died enemy, and to strike it of a kick to the face. Catherine de Médicis & Charles IX. Charles IX, after having resisted the excitations of his mother a long time, had finished by him yielding: "By God death, he with rage says, since you find good that the admiral is killed, I want, me, that one kills also all the huguenots of France, so that there does not remain about it one which can reproach it to me" Catherine did not neglect anything so that this desire was fully satisfied. Massacre of Saint-Barthélemy. Catherine de Médicis passed all the evening of Saturday 23 and one part of the night to prepare the crime with Henri de Guise and her other accomplices: the roles were distributed, one made close the doors of Paris, and connect all the boats of the Seine, then the stickers went by small troops to the stations that one assigned to them, so that at two hours of the morning, with the signal given by the bell of Saint-Germain the Resident of Auxerre, the massacre started everywhere at the same time: the Protestants, surprised for the majority in their bed, could not even defend themselves; the assassins were not satisfied to massacre Coligny and the other chiefs of the protesting party: noble, magistrates, middle-class man, craftsmen, all those which one could take perished, killed with blow of gun or blow of sword, struck, strangled, drowned, broken, the torturers saved neither the women, nor the children: "Bleed, bleed, shouted by laughing one of the principal executors, the bleeding is as good in August as in May" the rabble, put in joy, trailed the corpses of street in street, the paving stones were red and blood ran in the brooks. A few hundreds of Protestants who lived in theSaint-Germain suburb, apart from the walls, assembled with the noise of the arquebusades, and thinking that it was a riot of the Own ways against the king, it moved towards Tileries to defend it, but when they arrived on the quay, they were accomodated by shots, and the king took itself an arquebus to draw on them: they turned back in all haste, and the duke of Own way, which had sprung with their continuation, could not manage to join them (August 24, 1572). The massacres of Paris repeated in province, in Lyon, in Bordeaux, in Rouen, in Meaux, in Troyes, in Bourges, with Charity, Tours, in Orleans, in Saumur, in Angers, etc. The Loire, the Garonne and the Rhone rolled, like the Seine, of the hundreds of corpses. One can estimate that Saint-Barthélemy made approximately 20 000 victims, including at least 2000 in Paris and 500 in Rouen. Remorse of Charles IX. The king remained some time plunged in the intoxication of his crime, but when it returned to the reason, it had shame of itself, it lost the rest, and its nights were disturbed by terrible nightmares: he heard cries, he saw heaps of corpses, and as he felt death to approach, he trembled of terror, rejected his crime on his mother, and beseeched by sanglotant the mercy of God. Its end was so miserable that the Protestants themselves testified some pity to it. It died on May 30, 1574: it was not yet twenty-four years old. |
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In a first war, François de Guise begins the hostilities with the massacre of Vassy (1562), beats in Dreux the army of Cop and Coligny (1562), and perishes assassinated with the head office of Orleans (1563). Catherine de Médicis, who does not have to fear any more that the Protestant chiefs, decides Condé and Coligny skilfully to sign the peace of Amboise, not very advantageous for their party (1563). In a second war (1567), the Protestants, who took again the weapons to save their threatened life, tents to seize the king in Meaux, kill in Saint-Denis the constable of Montmorency, and obtain the peace of Longjumeau, which renews that of Amboise (1568). But the catholics still violate it, and the disgrace of the Hospital is followed of a redoubling of violence. In a third war, Condé is beaten and killed in Jarnac (1569); Coligny, become the only chief of the party, is also beaten in Moncontour, in Poitou (1569), but soon it is raised with strength and obtains frightened court the peace of Saint-Germain, who grants to the Protestants fortified towns, known as places of safety: La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, Charity (1570). The two parties seem to approach: Charles returns in Coligny his influence, and promises to him to declare the war in Spain to return to France its place to Europe; but Catherine de Médicis, jealous of Coligny, plots against him with the young person Henri de Guise, and suddenly Charles IX, fascinated by his mother, orders the massacre of Coligny and all the Protestants; this infamous order is carried out in Paris in the night of Saint-Barthélemy (August 24, 1572), and the days following in several provincial towns. However all the Protestants could not be cut the throat of: a fourth war bursts, and the catholics, after having used their forces in an attack against La Rochelle, grant to their enemies the peace of the Small rock (1573), which confirms that of Saint-Germain. Saint-Barthélemy was useless. |
Assassination of Coligny. Massacre of Saint-Barthélemy. |
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