“The Voices of St. Bartholomew’s Day”: a gripping historical investigation drawn from All Who Fall by historian Jérémie Foa. A podcast at the crossroads of first-person true crime, audiobook, and audio fiction. Almost everything seems to have been written about the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre—its actors, causes, and consequences… But have we heard everything? Discover the stories of ordinary Parisians—killers and victims—unearthed from the archives by the historian.
Please note these podcasts were recorded in French. YouTube’s automatic translation, while generally good, may contain some errors. If the podcast starts in French, you can change the language in the video player settings.
Episode 1: A Massacre Measured in Footsteps
18 August 1572. At court, preparations are underway for the marriage between the Catholic Marguerite de Valois, the king’s sister, and the Protestant Henry of Navarre. This union is meant to cement reconciliation between Catholic and Protestant factions locked in conflict for ten years. Meanwhile, the protagonists of our story go about their business, unsuspecting of what awaits them. Follow historian Jérémie Foa through the streets of Paris to meet them…
Episode 2: Horseshoe and Stag’s Horn
21 February 1570. The Protestant couple who run the Horseshoe Inn on Place Maubert are arrested by their neighbor Pigneron, a captain in the civic militia. The interrogation of Louis Brécheulx and Marie Creichant has come down to us. Their story sheds light on the neighborhood dynamics at work in the persecution of Huguenots in the years leading up to the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre…
Episode 3: The Political Use of Crumbs
21 February 1570. Following the tavern keepers of the previous episode, the examining commissioner at the Châtelet, Nicolas Aubert, is taken to the Conciergerie prison by one of his neighbors, who found eggs and ham at his home. The problem? It’s the middle of Lent. This story tells us a great deal about the tactics used to flush out Protestants when they looked exactly like good Catholics…
Episode 4: Their Loot Is Their Address Book
Three men are behind half of the 504 imprisonments for heresy at the Conciergerie between October 1567 and August 1570. Three men! Their names? Thomas Croizier, Claude Chenet, Nicolas Pezou. Ensign, sergeant, captain. Arrests, imprisonments, searches, plunder, and the compiling of lists of Protestants—let’s meet and observe the St. Bartholomew’s Day killers in training…
Episode 5: A Hundred Times the Ringers Rang
24 August 1572. The street shakes off sleep, slips whispering out of silence, men dress in haste. Then come voices, cries, impacts, women running and others weeping; slogans are shouted and echoed; doors slam, dogs bark; gunshots can be made out, bodies crumple. In this din, it is hard to isolate the signal that singles out—above all—the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Let’s draw closer. Closer still: listen.
Episode 6: The Hitman
24 August 1572. In the midst of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in Paris, a Protestant from Toulouse tries to have his Catholic compatriot, Claude Puget, killed. Handed over to the crowd, stripped, robbed, Puget is beaten mercilessly. The Seine inexorably looms on the victim’s horizon—the river is the massacre’s central character, its bridges serving as scaffolds. But the affair has nothing religious about it: it’s a vendetta…
Episode 7: The Betrayal of Witnesses
24 August 1572. Men hunt François de la Martellière through the houses of the neighborhood. They call out, shout his name, force doors, question his neighbors, search rooms. Has he managed to escape? But to where? Run without aim, without hope—but run. La Martellière barely knows Paris. At six o’clock, he is gravely wounded. At seven, a body—his—is spotted on the banks of the Seine. His execution proceeds like a manhunt…
Episode 8: Without Sorrow or Pity
This series closes on the carefree ball where yesterday’s killers mingle with the great and the good; on the future of their children—innocent of their fathers’ crimes—setting out to conquer the age. Let us draw the curtain of time over revelers trampling a gigantic grave. Fifteen years after the massacre, all is forgotten. Everywhere, the killers, their friends, their families have prospered; they are surrounded by and honored with the presence of the powerful. The moral of the story is that it has none…
A podcast produced by Regards protestants and the Protestant Museum
Text written and read by Jérémie Foa
Adaptation and direction: Antoine Gouritin
Dialogue: Olivier Keraval
Original music: Emmanuel Lévy
Sound recording: Franck Martin and Emmanuel Lévy
Sound design and mixing: Franck Martin
With the voices of: Arnauld Le Ridant, Merryl Roche, Wilfrid Roche Maestroni, Audrey Rousseau, and Emmanuel Lévy
Artwork: Fortifem
Associated notes
St. Bartholomew’s Day (24th August 1572)
Charles IX had tried to reconcile the two religious parties, but when this failed, he was driven by the Guise family to authorize the Catholics to assassinate the Protestant leaders; the situation...
Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
This is the emblematic event of the French Wars of Religion. On August 24, after the marriage of Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV) and Marguerite de Valois (daughter...