GASPARD DE SAULX
(Sieur de Tavannes | Gaspard de Saulx, sieur de Tavannes)
In August of 1572 Catholics in Paris led by the Marshall and his soldiers attacked the homes of all known Huguenots, murdering the inhabitants. Tavannes rode through the streets of Paris on his horse shouting the first quotation to his troops who would murder the helpless Protestants. The frenzy spread to the countryside. When it was over 50,000 innocent, unsuspecting Protestants had been murdered. When asked how he, a military marshal felt about such a one sided action against unarmed civilians he responded with the second quotation. The event came to be known as the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew as it commenced on that Saint’s day.
Gaspard de Saulx, sieur de Tavannes (March 1509–June 1573) was a French Roman Catholic military leader during the Italian Wars and the French Wars of Religion. He served under four kings during his career, participating in the Siege of Calais (1558) and leading the royal army to victory in the third civil war at the Jarnac and Moncontour. A strong Catholic, he founded the confraternity of the holy ghost in 1567 which would be a template for other militant Catholic organisations across France. He died in 1573, shortly after the opening assassinations of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which he had helped plan.
