Christianity in the 16th century intermittent conflicts, known as the Wars of Religion. The civil wars were helped along by the sudden death of Henry II in 1559, which saw the beginning of a prolonged period of weakness for the French crown. and outrage became the defining characteristic of the time, illustrated at its most intense in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August 1572, when the Catholic Church annihilated between 30,000 and 100,000 Huguenots across France. The wars only concluded when Henry IV, a former Huguenot, issued the Edict of Nantes, promising official toleration of the Protestant minority but under highly restricted conditions. Catholicism
Paris in the 16th century judges was created, the ancestor of the modern tribunes of commerce, which took away the power of the guilds to settle commercial disputes. The Roman Catholic Church in Paris was closely aligned with the Crown; the Bishops of Paris were chosen not because of the religious virtues, but because of their membership in prominent aristocratic families close to the King. Five important new churches were built in the Paris in the 16th century, the largest of which was Saint-Eustache near the central market of Les Halles. Throughout the century, Paris was a fortress of the traditional Roman Catholic faith. However,