oung and feeble sons. The first of
these, Francis II, the husband of Mary Stuart, ruled only a year. He was
completely under the control of the great Catholic family, the Guises,
who began a vigorous attempt to suppress the Protestants of France, the
Huguenots as they were called. But these Huguenots included many of the
highest and ablest of the French nobility and did not yield easily to
suppression. Francis II died, and the Queen-mother, Catherine de'
Medici, became regent for her second son, Charles IX. At first Catherine
feared the power of the Guises and encouraged the Huguenots; but Philip
of Spain interfered here as everywhere in the Catholic behalf. A civil
war broke out in 1562; and for over a generation France, divided against
herself, became the theatre of repeated conflicts and savage massacres.
She had no thought to give to other lands.

The first of her chiefs to be assassinated was Francis of Guise, the
great Catholic leader and general, shot by a Huguenot. Next the
Catholics attempted the murder of Coligny. They failed at first, and
Catherine de' Medici, who by this time had embraced fully the Catholic
cause, planned the awful massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572). A marriage
was arranged between the highest Huguenot in rank, the young prince
Henry of Navarre, and a royal princess. This was supposed to mark the
amicable ending of all disputes, and the chief Huguenots gathered gladly
to Paris for the ceremony. Suddenly an army of assassins were let loose
on them. Young Henry was spared, but Coligny and more than twenty
thousand Huguenots were slain.[6]

[6] See _Massacre of St. Bartholomew_, page 119.

The massacre spread over all France. The Protestants rallied, stern and
desperate, for defence and for revenge. The civil war was resumed again
and again, with false peaces patched in between. Philip might well
triumph at the utter anarchy into which he had helped to throw the
kingdom which had been his father's rival.

The feeble French king, Charles IX, died, in remorse and madness it is
said, for having permitted the great massacre. Henry III, last of the
sons of Catherine, ascended the throne, and was also guided by the dark
genius of his Italian mother. He found the new Duke of Guise, head of
the Catholic party, far more powerful than he, so caused his
assassination. That roused the Catholics to war on the King; the
Huguenots were also in arms under Henry of Navarre; there were now three
partie