On the evening of August 23rd, 1572, the eve of St. Bartholomew's day, a group of Swiss

mercenaries under the orders from Catherine de Medici, mothered to the Catholic King of France

Charles IX, stormed into the chambers of Protestant leader Gaspard de Colony.

Colony had just survived an assassination attempt days earlier and greeted death calmly,

saying, I seek clearly that which they seek, and I am ready steadfastly to suffer that

death which I have never feared and for which a long time passed I have pictured myself.

Colony dismissed his retinue, who escaped over the roofs, and the Swiss mercs poured into

his chambers.

One of the Swiss would later remark they, quote, never saw anyone less afraid in so great

peril, nor die more steadfastly.

Then a mercenary plunged his sword into Colony's gut, and then again into his open mouth.

The body was thrown from a window into the courtyard below for identification.

According to contemporary French author de Thau, later, quote, as some children were in

the act of throwing the body into the river, it was dragged out and placed upon the

give it of Montfou-Saint, where it hung by the feet in chains of iron, and then they

built a fire underneath by which he was burned without being consumed.

So that he was, so to speak, tortured with all the elements, since he was killed upon

the earth, thrown into the water, placed upon the fire, and finally put to hang in the

air.

This was the beginning of the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre, a three-day orgy of mob violence

in Paris and the French countryside against the French Calvinists, known as the Huguenot.

Royal officials and common citizens alike dragged Protestants, including women and children

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