In Paris, with the Duke of Guise absent on the Auxerre campaign, his anonymous henchmen and their merciless accomplices delivered a thousand death blows – a persecution of anyone who admitted allegiance to the Protestant religion or was even suspected of the same. Beatings occurred daily; humiliation by insult; market stalls upturned; old women spat on. All this to earn their coin and curry favour with their master.
During this time, Catherine the Queen Mother, kept her distance from the capital, disassociating herself and, when advantageous, denying any knowledge of the atrocities. These appalling outrages were committed by both Catholic and Protestant sides and, in this respect, the one was no better than the other. In public, she was seen as a devoted mother, a wife usurped by her husb
