[Sidenote: Catharine de Medicis.] The wife of Henry II. was the celebrated Catharine de Medicis; and she was bitterly opposed to the reform doctrines, and incited her husband to the most cruel atrocities. Francis II. continued the persecution, and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the ruler of the nation. The power of the queen mother was much increased when Francis II. died, and when his brother, Charles IX., a boy of nine years of age, succeeded to the French crown. She exercised her power by the most unsparing religious persecution recorded in the history of modern Europe. There had been some hope that Protestantism would be established in France; but it did not succeed, owing to the violence of the persecution. It made, however, a desperate struggle before it was overcome. At the head of the Catholic party were the queen regent, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, his brother, and the Constable Montmorency. They had the support of the priesthood, of the Spaniards, and a great majority of the nation. The Protestants were headed by the King of Navarre, father of Henry IV., the Prince of Conde, his brother, and Admiral Coligny; and they had the sympathy of the university, the parliaments, and the Protestants of Germany and England. [Sidenote: Civil War in France.] Between these parties a struggle lasted for forty years, with various success. Persecution provoked resistance, but resistance did not lead to liberty. Civil war in France did not secure the object sought. Still the Protestants had hope, and, as they could always assemble a large army, they maintained their ground. Their conduct was not marked by the religious earnestness which characterized the Puritans, or by the same strength of religious principle. Moreover, political motives were mingled with religious. The contest was a struggle for the ascendency of rival chiefs, as well as for the establishment of reformed doctrines. The Bourbons hated the Guises, and the Guises resolved to destroy the Bourbons. In the course of their rivalry and warfare, the Duke of Guise was assassinated, and the King of Navarre, as well as the Prince of Conde, were killed. Charles IX. was fourteen years of age when the young king of Navarre,--at that time sixteen years of age,--and his cousin, the Prince of Conde, became the acknowledged heads of the Protestant party. Their education was learned in the camp and the field of battle. Charles IX., under the influence of his hateful mother, finding that civil war only destroyed the resources of the country, without weakening the Protestants, made peace, but formed a plan for their extermination by treachery. In order to cover his designs he gave his sister, Margaret de Valois, in marriage to the King of Navarre, first prince of the blood, then nineteen years of age. Admiral Coligny was invited to Paris, and treated with distinguished courtesy. [Sidenote: Massacre of St. Bartholomew.]