 Some Huguenot preachers and congregants were attacked as they attempted to meet for worship.<ref></ref> The height of this persecution was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in August, 1572, when 5,000 to 30,000 were killed, although there were also underlying political reasons for this as well, as some of the Huguenots were nobles trying to establish separate centres of power in southern France.Retaliating against the French Catholics, the Huguenots had their own militia.<ref></ref>

Early in his reign, Francis I (reign 1515–1547) persecuted the old, pre-Protestant movement of Waldensians in southeastern France.Francis initially protected the Huguenot dissidents from Parlementary measures seeking to exterminate them.