The Wars of Religion ■ 635 belonged to a side line of the French royal house, known as The the Bourbons, who were later to occupy the French throne ^""^ ^"^ (see genealogical table, p. 634). It was inevitable that the Huguenots should try to get control of the government, and they consequently formed a political as well as a religious party and were often fighting, in the main, for worldly ends. Catherine tried at first to conciliate both Catholics and Hu- Catherine guenots, and granted a Decree of Toleration (1562) suspending dSonaf^"" the former edicts against the Protestants and permitting them toleration to assemble for worship during the daytime and outside of the Protestants, towns. Even this restricted toleration of the Protestants ap- peared an abomination to the more fanatical Catholics, and a savage act of the Duke of Guise precipitated civil war. As he w^as passing through the town of Vassy on a Sunday The massa- he found a thousand Huguenots assembled in a barn for wor- and^the ^^^^ ship. The duke's followers rudely interrupted the service, and opening of ^ . the wars of a tumult arose in which the troops killed a considerable num- rehgion ber of the defenseless multitude. The news of this massacre aroused the Huguenots and was the beginning of a war which continued, broken only by short truces, until the last weak descendant of the house of Valois ceased to reign. As in the other religious wars of the time, both sides exhibited the most inhuman cruelty. France was filled for a generation with burnings, pillage, and every form of barbarity. The leaders of both the Catholic and Protestant parties, as well as two of the French kings themselves, fell by the hands of assassins, and France renewed in civil war all the horrors of the English invasion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 1570 a brief peace was concluded. The Huguenots were Coligny's to be tolerated, and certain towns were assigned to them, plan for a where they might defend themselves in case of renewed attacks "^^^^ "f ^^^ from the Catholics. For a time both Charles IX and his mother, Philip 1 1 Catherine of Medici, were on the friendliest terms with the Hu- guenot leader Coligny, who became a sort of prime minister. He was anxious that Catholics and Protestants should join in
