The story of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois

When I look out the balcony window of our hotel room in Paris, I see the Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois across the narrow cobblestone street. The church is an imposing Gothic edifice, with gargoyles and spires and windows designed with ogive, or pointed, arches. Although it's not necessarily one of the major tourist attractions like Notre Dame or Sacre Coeur, St. Germain- l'Auxerrois is significant in the great story of Western civilization because the tolling of its bells one day in the late summer of 1572 marked the beginning of a religious slaughter ... known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

Europe had been Catholic, at least formally, until Martin Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the door of the church at the University of Wittenberg, Germany in 1517, igniting widespread, smoldering discontent against the Church. Violence erupted as religious protestors ... Protestants in various guises ... rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church, and the Church sought to contain the threat to its existence. In France, Calvinist Protestants were known as Huguenots, and Catherine de'Medici, a powerful and devout Italian Catholic, entered the fray here when, for political reasons, she conspired to marry her Catholic daughter, Marguerite of Valois, to the Huguenot Prince of Navarre.

The wedding was set for August 1572, in the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. That's right ... the church next door. When the bells tolled in celebration of the nuptials, with the blessing of the pope Catherine de'Medici had her conspirators slit the throats of every prominent Huguenot in Paris ... except her new son-in-law. After the dust had settled from the Bartholomew's Day Massacre, at least five thousand (and perhaps many, many more) Huguenots were dead.

A few bloody years later, in 1589, when the Prince of Navarre was crowned Henry IV, King of France, he renounced his Huguenot convictions for the sake of peace and embraced Catholicism. "Paris," he said, "is worth a mass."

Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois is peaceful today, and feels like a holy place. But if I stand very still, I think I can hear voices whispering urgently from the past.