ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the portrayal of Protestantism in the closing years of the reign of Henri II and during the ensuing period of political instability which followed his death up to the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion. Catholic authors deliberately exploited the clandestine nature of Protestant gatherings to accuse them of conducting orgies and, after the politicization of the conflict, plotting against the Crown. The aim of these authors was to justify the persecution of Protestantism during the reign of Henri II, and forestall the efforts of conciliation that were made during the regency of Catherine de Medici. From the twelfth century until the sixteenth, several heretical movements were accused of the 'blood libel'. Catholics indeed moved away from the 'blood libel', which had provided the Huguenots with ammunition in their comparison with the early Church martyrs.
