St. Bartholomew's Day massacre published his "Discours contre Machievel" in 1576, which was printed in ten editions in three languages over the next four years. Gentillet held, quite wrongly according to Sydney Anglo, that Machiavelli's "books [were] held most dear and precious by our Italian and Italionized courtiers" (in the words of his first English translation), and so (in Anglo's paraphrase) "at the root of France's present degradation, which has culminated not only in the St Bartholemew massacre but the glee of its perverted admirers". In fact there is little trace of Machiavelli in French writings before the massacre, and not very much after,
Paris in the 16th century of two hundred twenty "sergeants à verge" who were stationed at the city gates and major intersections. The night watch was maintained by a separate force of about two hundred forty men, composed of the "Chevalier du guet" and his sergeants. The earlier night watch, which had consisted of members of the merchants, was abolished in 1559 because of its ineffectiveness In the first part of the 16th century, the merchants still had considerable control of commercial matters and disputes, but in the second half of the century most of these rights were taken away. In 1563 a system commercial