In the matter of maps, the very complete apparatus of maps in Mr. Whitehead’s _Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France_, has greatly lightened my task, and I express my cordial thanks to Mr. Whitehead and Messrs. Methuen & Co., his publishers, for permission to reproduce those in that work. My thanks are also due to M. Ch. de Coynart and MM. Firmin Didot et Cie for permission to reproduce the map illustrating the battle of Dreux from the late Commandant de Coynart’s work entitled _L’Année 1562 et la bataille de Dreux_; and to M. Steph. C. Gigon, author of _La bataille de Jarnac et la campagne de 1569 en Angoumois_, for permission to use his two charts of the battle of Jarnac. Those illustrating the Tour of the Provinces in 1564-66, the march of the duke of Alva and Montgomery’s great raid in Gascony are my own. Some lesser maps and illustrations are from old prints which I have gathered together, in the course of years, except that illustrating the siege of Havre-de-Grace and the large picture of the battle of St. Denis, which have been photographed from the originals in the Record Office. During the preparation of this volume, which has entailed two prolonged visits to Paris and other parts of France, and to London, I have become the debtor to many persons. Among those of whose courtesy and assistance I would make special acknowledgment are the following: His Excellency, M. Jean-Jules Jusserand, French ambassador at Washington; M. Henri Vignaud, chargé d’affaires of the American legation in Paris; MM. Charles de la Roncière and Viennot of the Bibliothèque Nationale; MM. Le Grand and Viard of the Archives Nationales, where I chiefly worked in the K. Collection. At the Record Office, Mr. Hubert Hall and his assistant, Miss Mary Trice Martin, were unfailing in the aid given me. For the transcript of the “Discorso sopra gli humori del Regno di Francia,” from the Barberini Library in Rome, I am indebted to P. Franz Ehrle, prefect of the Vatican archives. I also hold in grateful memory the friendship and assistance of the late Woodbury Lowery, author of _The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States: Florida_ (1562-74), New York, 1905, with whom I was a fellow worker at the Archives Nationales in the spring and early summer of 1903. Finally, I owe much to the suggestive criticism of my friend and colleague, Professor Ferdinand Schevill, and my friends, Professor Herbert Darling Foster, of Dartmouth College, and Professor Roger B. Merriman, of Harvard University, each of whom has read much of the manuscript. JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO January 1909 CONTENTS PAGE LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES xv CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF THE HUGUENOT REVOLT. THE CONSPIRACY OF AMBOISE 1