This is the 446th Anniversary of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre…In the pre-da

This is the 446th Anniversary of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre… In the pre-dawn hours of AUGUST 24th 1572, Marguerite de Valois’ POST-WEDDING CELEBRATIONS BECAME A MASSACRE—THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY MASSACRE TO BE EXACT. Before the bloodshed was over, 3,000 men, women and children would be dead in Paris alone and the violence would spread to province after province. The Seine was so full of bodies at one location that it was possible to cross it without wetting one’s feet. People urged their children to throw the infants of neighboring families into the river. Many who died were, of course, persecuted Protestants. But the rage at its root has much to do with socio-economic jealousy and personal grudges as well, as people took the opportunity during the on-going violence to settle grudges of many sorts. Within the walls of the Louvre men who had sat down at wedding banquets together only days before became murders and victims. And Margot’s husband the King of Navarre was hunted to the apartment of his brother-in-law the King of France. Margot would be forced by the events of the massacre to make a choice between loyalty to her family and the dictates of her own conscience. Fortunately for the history of France, she chose the later. “Drawing a deep breath I step out of my apartment, glad of the dagger I clutch.At first I see no one and the noises I hear, while dreadful, are distant.  Then the shrieking comes.  Ahead of me a man emerges from a chamber.  He runs, full speed, in my direction, screaming.  Behind him three archers come into view.  They pause, take aim, and down the gentleman goes, not ten steps from me, arrows in his back.  Yet the shrieking does not stop.Holy Mary mother of God am I screaming?  I must be.  But this fact has no effect on the archers, they merely lower their bows and run past, barely pausing to see that that fallen gentleman is dead.  I close my eyes.  Surely this is a nightmare.  But even before I open them again I know that the body of the gentleman will remain—the odor of blood fills my nostrils.” –Médicis Daughter by Sophie Perinot On AMAZON, or wherever books are sold. -- source link

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