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 in the city was that of the Saints-Innocents, near Les Halles, which covered 7000 square meters. Two thousand persons had been buried at the Saint-Innocents, causing serious poisoning of the soil to a depth of two meters or more, and a ghastly aroma in the neighborhood. The residents began demanding its closure as early as 1554, but the Parlement of Paris did not close the city cemeteries to new burials until 1765. The restaurant in its modern form did not appear in Paris until the late 18th century, but Paris had numerous taverns which served drinks and food separately, and