section_path: Wars of religion and tolerance/French Wars of Religion
section_name: French Wars of Religion
paragraph_text: French Wars of Religion
  
  Many French Protestants did not risk to profess their faith in public. They were known as Nicodemites after Nicodemus, a Pharisee who visited Jesus in secret. Calvin condemned this practice describing those who attended the Mass as soldiers "in the army of Antichrist". Under his influence, the French Protestants started to stay away from Catholic church services. They were called Huguenots for uncertain reason. The poet Clément Marot (d. 1544) provided them with popular stirring songs by translating forty-nine Psalms to French. Francis I promised to exterminate heresy in France in a peace treaty with Charles V in 1544. Next year, Waldensians were massacred in the Luberon region. In 1547, Henry II established a special court for heresy cases, named la chambre ardente ('the burning chamber'). The lawyer Jean Crespin (d. 1572) completed a catalogue of martyrs to commemorate the victims of the purges, and it gained immense popularity in the Protestant communities all over Europe. After around 1555, prominent French aristocrats converted to Protestantism, including Marguerite of Angoulême's daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, (d. 1572), Jeanne's husband Antoine de Bourbon (d. 1562), and Gaspard II de Coligny (d. 1572), admiral of France. Their patronage encouraged less distinguished Huguenots to express their faith in public. In 1559, delegates from seventy-two congregations attended the first synod of the Reformed Church of France, representing about 1.5–2 million believers. The synod adopted the Gallican Confession, a confessional document drated by Calvin.
  
  Fully preoccupied with a new war against Emperor Charles, Henry II did not take severe measures against the Huguenot nobility. After his sudden death after an accident, his eldest son Francis II (r. 1559–1560) ascended the throne. His wife, Mary, Queen of Scots was the niece of Francis, Duke of Guise (d. 1563) and Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (d. 1574), two leaders of the most resolute Catholic faction of the nobility. The queen mother Catherine de' Medici (d. 1589) distrusted them but the persecution of Huguenots intensified under their influence. When Francis died by an ear infection, Calvin considered his fate as divine deliverance. Francis was succeeded by his brother Charles IX (r. 1560–1574) under Catherine's regency. She enacted the Huguenots' right to freely attend church services and hold public assemblies because she wanted to avoid a civil war along religious lines.
  
  Uncompromising Catholics and Huguenots considered their confrontation inevitable. The first of the French Wars of Religion —a series of armed conflicts between Catholics and Huguenots—began after Guise's retainers massacred more than fifty Huguenots at Vassy on 1 March 1562. As Antoine de Bourbon had returned to Catholicism, his brother Louis I, Prince of Condé (d. 1569) assumed the leadership of a Huguenot revolt. They concluded a treaty with England in September 1562. To achieve a reconciliation, Catherine de'Medici married off her daughter Margaret of Valois (d. 1615) to the Protestant son of Jeanne d'Albret and Antoine de Bourbon, Henry de Bourbon, King of Navarre (r. 1572–1610). Mutual mistrust between Catholics and Huguenots, and the Parisians' determination to cleanse their city of heresy led to the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre after the wedding. On 24 August 1572, a fanatic mob slaughtered 2,000–3,000 Protestants in Paris, and by early October further 6,000–7,000 Huguenots fell victim to pogroms in other cities and towns. Many Huguenots returned to the Catholic Church or fled from France, and those who remained gathered in southern and southern-west France and continued the armed resistance. Known as " Malcontents ", moderate Catholics concluded that only concessions to the Huguenots could restore peace.
  
  Charles IX died in May 1574 leaving an almost empty treasury to his brother Henry III (r. 1574–1567). Henry adopted a moderate religious policy but the uncompromising Catholics established the Catholic League in 1576. They entered into a secret alliance with Philip II of Spain to prevent the spread of Protestantism. In 1589, the monk Jacques Clément mortally wounded King Henry. He named Henry de Bourbon as his heir, but the League and many cities refused to obey to a Huguenot king. Henry IV secured the support of moderate Catholics by converting to Catholicism. He defeated his French opponents and their Spanish allies, and put an end to the civil war early in 1598. He enacted many of the demands of the Huguenots, about fifteen per cent of the population, in the Edict of Nantes. Among others, they were allowed to attend religious services in many places, and their right to hold public offices was confirmed.