Saint Bartholomew Day Massacres

The French Wars of Religion were the worst of times, a civil war where fathers killed sons, and sons, converted overnight, slipped into the chambers of the nobles they had served for years and slit their throats, each religion certain of carrying out God's will. The worst of times when crops were devoured by army troops, human locusts responsible for famines and the resultant cannibalism, and three invisible killers hovered over all, typhus, cholera and humiliating dysentery. The worst of times where 8,000,000 fell victim to halberds, harquebusiers, swords and daggers; children murdered by adults; babies dragged through the streets by children, already dead if they were fortunate. The massacres ran through the reigns of François I, Henri II, Henri III, Henri IV and Louis XIII, fully developed herein. Yet the mind behind the worst abuses was that of a woman, Catherine de' Medici, who had seen enough heads on pikes, enough skinned bodies hanging from bridges, enough women eviscerated and men deprived of their privates, to know what awaited her and her sons if she didn't exterminate the heretics, down to the very last. The wretched beast that was Henry VIII killed 72,000; Napoleon deprived 3,500,00 lads of their precious lives; while the count for the French Wars of Religion was more than twice that. This is the documented history of those worst of times.