Paris in the 16th century worth a Mass". On March 14, 1594, Henry IV entered Paris, after having been crowned King of France at the cathedral of Chartres on February 27, 1594. Once he was established in Paris, Heny did all that he could to re-establish peace and order in the city, and to win the approval of the Parisians. He permitted the Protestants to open churches far from the center of the city, continued work on the Pont Neuf, and began to plan two Renaissance-style residential squares, Place Dauphine and Place des Vosges, which were not built until the 17th century. The population of
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre response to the threatening atmosphere for Huguenots in these cities. In Rouen, where some hundreds were killed, the Huguenot community shrank from 16,500 to fewer than 3,000 mainly as a result of conversions and emigration to safer cities or countries. Some cities unaffected by the violence nevertheless witnessed a sharp decline in their Huguenot population. It has been claimed that the Huguenot community represented as much as 10% of the French population on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, declining to 7-8% by the end of the 16th century, and further after heavy persecution began once again during