ABSTRACT
Parisians were stunned when they heard of the events in Blois. Henry III's penitential excesses were interpreted as 'black masses' by the League's propagandists. The religious fervour that sustained the pamphleteering owed much to the Parisian clergy. On 1 January 1589 a campaign of mourning for the Blois victims was launched at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Ardents, one of the holiest sanctuaries in the capital. Mayenne, Guise's brother, was in Lyons supervising military preparations for an offensive against the Huguenots at the time of the Blois murders. On 24 December 1588 Henry III wrote to Pisani, his representative in Rome, announcing the execution of the Guises. By mid-March 1589 Henry III had decided that his best course of action was to reach an agreement with Henry of Navarre. Henry III's warlike posture harked back to his earlier career as duc d'Anjou when he had led the victorious Catholic armies at Jarnac and Moncontour.
