ABSTRACT
Water festivals had become an established feature of French court entertainments by the time Charles IX ascended the throne in December 1560. They were of two kinds: civic festivals laid on by towns as part of the rejoicings associated with a royal entry and entertainments laid on at court exclusively for its members and guests. Charles IX was only a boy of ten at his accession – too young to be a fullyfledged king, so that his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, had to govern in his name. She was given the title of ‘governor of the kingdom’, but was in effect regent. Her task was difficult, for two years after Charles’s accession the first of a series of French religious wars broke out that tore the kingdom apart.1 Not a propitious time, one might think, for water festivals; yet they did take place, if only because Catherine, who was no religious fanatic, believed that they might serve to bring Frenchmen, more especially the nobility, together in peace.
