The Massacre of Wassy, also known as the Massacre of Vassy, is the name given to the murder of Huguenot worshippers and citizens in an armed action by troops of Francis, Duke of Guise, in Wassy, France on 1 March 1562. The massacre is identified as the first major event in the French Wars of Religion. The series of battles that followed concluded in the signing of the Peace of Amboise the next year, on 19 March 1563. The events surrounding the Massacre of Wassy were famously depicted in a series of forty engravings published in Genevaseven years later.
Background
Persecution
Beginning in the reign of Francis I, Protestants who followed the teachings of John Calvin, known as Huguenots faced state backed persecution in France. This persecution continued under his two successors, Henry II and Francis II the latter of whom died young in 1560. Catherine de' Medici, regent of Charles IX, proposed the Edict of January with the hopes that providing a measure of toleration to Calvinism would help France avoid further chaos of the kind that had engulfed the south west of the country. The Parlement of Paris would however resist registration of the edict until 6 March 1562, as such it would not be in force at the time of the Duke's entry into Wassy.
The Guise family was by this time one of the most powerful families in France. Their Princely title coming from the seat of Joinville which was located only a few miles away from Wassy. The town of Wassy itself was tied to the Guise family, having been a Dower of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Dukes niece. These connections would play a role in Francis' justification for his actions after the fact.
Massacre
The event
On 1 March 1562, Francis, the second Duke of Guise, travelling from his family seat at Joinville to Paris with a guard of gentlemen stopped at the town of Wassy. Hearing reports of Huguenot worship in a barn that had been converted into a temple, he and his gentlemen decided to investigate and put a stop to what they considered an illegal gathering. Finding a large congregation present, members of his party attempted to gain entry to the barn, at this point violence quickly escalated and the Duke and his men began massacring all those inside, killing 50.
The exact nature of the events, in particular in relation to whether it had been a Huguenot or a member of Francis' party who had begun the violence, immediately became a source of disagreement between Protestant and Catholic polemics and contemporary histories. In the Protestant Histoire des Martyres, it is an act of pre-meditated violence on the part of the Catholic gentlemen who cry upon entering the temple "let us kill them all". In Francis' recollections to the Duke of Württemberg, which would form the basis for the Catholic account, he reports that upon trying to inspect the temple he was resisted, and arquebusiers were fired from the inside at his men, who had only swords to defend themselves.
Aftermath
Further massacre and revolt
The massacre inspired further religious violence in its immediate wake. On 12 April the people of Sens would massacre over 100 of the town's Huguenots, throwing their corpses into the Seine. Further massacres would occur in Castelnaudary and Bar-sur-Seine in early 1562. Huguenots involved in the attempted or successful seizure of towns such as Rouen and Troyes would assert that their actions were necessary to prevent themselves being massacred like the parishioners of Wassy.
The spiral to war
Having committed the massacre, and despite resulting instructions from Catherine to immediately come to court, Francis continued on to Paris, where upon hearing the news of his actions he was given a heroes welcome by the Catholic population. Catherine, as regent, seeing the dangerous potential of the magnates in the city, ordered him and the leader of the Huguenot party, the Prince of Condé to vacate Paris, Francis however refused to do so. In response to this and the massacre Condé marched on Orléans seizing it on 2 April and several days later releasing a manifesto which in justifying his rebellion would cite the "cruel and horrible carnage wrought at Vassy, in the presence of M. de Guise". Several days later at the Calvinist Synod of Orleans he would be proclaimed the protector of all Calvinist churches in the Kingdom.
The major engagements of the war occurred at Rouen, Dreux and Orléans. At the Siege of Rouen, the crown regained the city, but Antoine of Navarre died of his wounds. In the Battle of Dreux, Condé was captured by the Guises, and Montmorency, the governor general, was captured by those opposing the crown. In February 1563, at the Siege of Orléans, Francis was shot and killed by the Huguenot Jean de Poltrot de Méré. As he was killed outside of direct combat, the Guise considered this an assassination on the orders of the duke's enemy, Admiral Coligny. The popular unrest caused by the assassination, coupled with the resistance by the city of Orléans to the siege, led Catherine de' Medici to mediate a truce, resulting in the Edict of Amboise on 19 March 1563.
