ts grew mightily in numbers and power. Their natural leader,
the King of Navarre, indeed failed them, for he changed his faith
several times, his real cult, as Calvin remarked, being that of Venus.
His wife, Joan d'Albret, however, became an ardent Calvinist.

At this point the government proposed a means of conciliation that had
been tried by Charles V in Germany and had there failed. The leading
theologians of both confessions were summoned to a colloquy at Poissy.
[Sidenote: Colloquy of Poissy, August, 1561] Most of the German
divines invited were prevented by politics from coming, but the noted
Italian Protestant Peter Martyr Vermigli and Theodore Beza of Geneva
were present. The debate turned on the usual points at issue, and was
of course indecisive, {214} though the Huguenots did not hesitate to
proclaim their own victory.

[Sidenote: January, 1562]

A fresh edict of toleration had hardly been issued when civil war was
precipitated by a horrible crime. Some armed retainers of the Duke of
Guise, coming upon a Huguenot congregation at Vassy in Champagne,
[Sidenote: Massacre of Vassy, March 1, 1562] attacked them and murdered
three hundred. A wild cry of fury rose from all the Calvinists;
throughout the whole land there were riots. At Toulouse, for example,
fighting in the streets lasted four days and four hundred persons
perished. It was one of the worst years in the history of France. A
veritable reign of terror prevailed everywhere, and while the crops
were destroyed famine stalked throughout the land. Bands of robbers
and ravishers, under the names of Christian parties but savages at
heart, put the whole people to ransom and to sack. Indeed, the Wars of
Religion were like hell; the tongue can describe them better than the
imagination can conceive them. The whole sweet and pleasant land of
France, from the Burgundian to the Spanish frontier, was widowed and
desolated, her pride humbled by her own sons and her Golden Lilies
trampled in the bloody mire. Foreign levy was called in to supply
strength to fratricidal arms. The Protestants, headed by Conde and
Coligny, raised an army and started negotiations with England. The
Catholics, however, had the best of the fighting. They captured Rouen,
defended by English troops, and, under Guise, defeated the Huguenots
under Coligny at Dreux. [Sidenote: December 19, 1562]

[Sidenote: February 18, 1563]

Two months later, Francis of Guise was assassinated