Paris in the 16th century include the Tuileries Palace, the Fontaine des Innocents, the Lescot wing of the Louvre; the church of Saint-Eustache (1532); and the Hôtel Carnavalet, begun in 1545, now the museum of the history of Paris. During the century Paris was the second most important center of book publishing centers of Europe, after Venice. The University of Paris devoted its attentions largely to fighting the Protestant heresy, the King founded the College of France as a new center of learning independent of the university. Tensions between Protestants and Catholics grew, culminating in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, when several thousand
Paris in the 16th century Paris is estimated by modern historians to have been about 250,000 at the beginning of the 16th century, growing to 350,000 by 1550, then dropping down to 300,000 by the end of the century, due to the plague epidemic of 1580, and the long siege of the city during the Wars of Religion. The area of the city covered about 439 hectares within the city walls. Several new neighborhoods, formally rural, were populated over the course of the century, notably the Faubourgs Saint-Honoré, Saint-Martin, and Montmartre. Despite efforts of the government to keep the area outside of the walls clear