Paris in the 16th century Wars of Religion (1562-1598). Paris was the stronghold of the Catholic League. On the night of August 23–24, 1572, while many prominent Protestants from all over France were in Paris on the occasion of the marriage of Henri of Navarre—the future Henry IV—to Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX, the royal council decided to assassinate the leaders of the Protestants. The targeted killings quickly turned into a general slaughter of Protestants by Catholic mobs, known as St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and continued through August and September, spreading from Paris to the rest of the country. About three thousand Protestants
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in audio form. The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre is the setting for Tim Willocks' historical novel, "The Twelve Children of Paris" (Matthias Tannhauser Trilogy:2) (2013), and Ken Follett's book A Column of Fire, published in 2017. Follett gives several of the book's main characters a role in the massacre and the events leading up to it. St. Bartholomew's Day massacre The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre () in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated