24
August 1572 A.D. St.
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
Church Campanologist offers
this view at: http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/the-origins-of-the-word-huguenot/ Also, Rusten.
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
John 16.2-3: They
will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills
you will think that he offers God service. And
these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.
18 August 1572. The wedding was on and happened. There had
been long hopes for peace between Papal Roman Catholics and Non-Papal, Reformed
Catholics, known as Protestants or French Huguenots.
The wedding occurred
between the Protestant King Henry of Navarre (a French region) and the Papal
Romanist Princess, Margaret of Valois.
The bride was the
sister of the French King, Charles IX and the daughter of Catherine de Medici,
the powerful Queen Mother.
It was a gala affair
with 1000s of French Huguenots assembling for the event.
As a meanwhile, the
following predated the wedding.
Calvinism had come to
France in 1555. Half the population of
France, it is said, had become Genevan Calvinists. There were 2000 Calvinistic
churches.
Also, between 1562 and
1572, there had been three “Wars of Religion.”
There had been 18 massacres of Huguenots, 5 massacres of Papal
Romanists, and 30 assassinations.
While the wedding was
being planned, the Queen Mother was plotting the assassination of leading and
popular Huguenot, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. The plot failed on 22 Aug 1572.
The attempt brought
opprobrium to the Royal family.
The young 22-year King,
Charles IX, exclaimed to his murderous mother, Catherine de Medici: “If you are
going to kill Coligny, why don’t you kill all the Huguenots in France, so that
there will be no one left to hate me.”
Catherine took up the
idea. She issued the order to
courtiers. The massacre began on 24 August 1572.
The gates to the city
were closed so that no Huguenots could escape.
Coligny was murdered as he knelt in prayer.
The royal guests to the
wedding were lodged at Louvre. They were
called out one-by-one and murdered. King
Charles IX looked on with approval.
Homes of Huguenot
families in Paris were broken into and whole families perished.
At daybreak, the king’s
messengers went throughout the city crying, “Kill them! Kill them! The king
commands it!” Never under-estimate the
stupidity of crowds under delusions. The
massacre spread beyond Paris to other cities.
When the Pope got word
of the massacres, he ordered celebrations in the city of Rome. Torches were to be lit! The Te
Deum was to be sung.
The young king, Charles
IX, began having nightmares. We would
probably diagnose him with PTSD, those nasty, repetitive and inextinguishable
dreams that dominate and control many combat veterans. The king would cry out to his nurse, “What
bloodshed! What murders! What evil counsel I have followed? Oh my God, O
forgive me…I am lost!”
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