Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/279

 THE ERA OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION 267 But the peace was only a truce. Twelve months later the war was again in full swing. But Catherine, perceiving that Philip of Spain meant to turn the Guise party to his own uses, began to incline to the Protestant side. Again a treaty confirmed the toleration granted before to the Huguenots, and Huguenot in- fluence now predominated with the young King Charles ix. The Queen Mother again saw power slipping from her own grasp. In 1572 an immense number of Huguenots were assembled in the fanatically Catholic city of Paris to celebrate the wedding of young Henry of Navarre, the head st. Bartnoio- of the Bourbons, with the king's youngest sister. me ^« With the connivance of Catherine, the Guises organised a mas- sacre of the Huguenots on the night of St. Bartholomew. Some twenty thousand Protestants were slaughtered, including Coligny, and similar massacres followed in other parts of the country. The pope celebrated the event by a service of thanksgiving, and Philip of Spain rejoiced ; but the world stood aghast. The hope that France under a Huguenot regime would support the revolt of the Netherlands was destroyed. But Catherine saw that whether intentionally or not she had gone too far in sur- passing Alva's atrocities. The Huguenots began to Jtv6cLC ulOIX* recover ground ; and three years after the massacre, when Henry in. had succeeded Charles ix., the Edict of Poictiers once more granted a degree of toleration to the Huguenots, after which the pacification endured for seven years. It is to be observed that while King Henry was himself a bitter Catholic he was on ill terms with the Guises, and his younger brother Francis of Anjou associated himself with the moderate leaders of the Huguenots. When Francis died in 1594 the Huguenot Henry of Navarre became heir-presumptive to the French throne. The recall of Alva, and the effect on public sentiment of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, brought about a less savage regime in the Netherlands, and the consequent abstinence of the southern states from the revolt which the northern e# Nether- states maintained with a magnificent obstinacy, lands: They were determined to hold out to the last in ^^^ their demands for religious freedom, the restoration of the old form of government, and the withdrawal of the