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Not to dimminish the goodness of this holiday, we should also remember the (probably tens of thousands) French Protestants who where murdered on this day in 1572 (from Wikipedia):

The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day was the culmination of a series of events:

* The Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which put an end to the Third War of Religion on August 8, 1570.
* The marriage between Henry of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois on August 18, 1572
* The failed assassination of Admiral de Coligny on August 23, 1572.

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An unacceptable peace and an unacceptable marriage

The Peace of Saint-Germain put an end to three years of terrible civil war between Catholics and Protestants. This peace was precarious, however, since the more intransigent Catholics refused to accept it. With the Guise family, who led this faction, out of favour at the French court, the Huguenot leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, was readmitted into the king's council in September 1571. Staunch Catholics were shocked by the return of the Protestants to the court, but the Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medici, and her son, King Charles IX, were determined not to let war break out again. They were also conscious of the kingdom's financial difficulties, which led them to uphold the peace and remain on friendly terms with Coligny. The Huguenots were in a strong defensive position as they controlled the fortified towns of La Rochelle, La Charité-sur-Loire, Cognac, and Montauban. To cement the peace between the two religious parties, Catherine de' Medici planned to marry her daughter Marguerite de Valois, to the Protestant prince, Henry of Navarre (the future King Henry IV). The royal marriage was arranged for the 18 August 1572. It was not accepted by diehard Catholics, or by the pope. He and King Philip II of Spain strongly condemned the Queen Mother's policy.
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A tense city

The marriage led to the presence of a large number of well-born Protestants in Paris, who had come to escort their prince. But Paris was a violently anti-Huguenot city. The Parisians, who were extreme Catholics, found their presence unacceptable. Encouraged by Catholic preachers, particularly the Capuchins, they were horrified at the marriage of a princess of France with a Protestant. The Parliament of Paris itself decided to snub the marriage ceremony. Besides this, harvests had been bad. The rise in prices and the luxury displayed on the occasion of the royal wedding intensified the hatred felt by the common people.

The court itself was extremely divided. Catherine de' Medici had not obtained the pope's permission to celebrate this irregular marriage. Consequently, the French prelates hesitated over which attitude to adopt. It took all the Queen Mother's skill to convince the Cardinal de Bourbon to marry the couple. Besides this, the rivalries between the leading families re-emerged. The Guises were not prepared to make way for the Montmorencys. Francois, Duke of Montmorency, and governor of Paris, was unable to control the disturbances in the city. Faced with the dangerous situation in Paris, he preferred to leave town a few days before the wedding.
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The attempted assassination of Admiral de Coligny

After the wedding, Coligny and the leading Huguenots remained in Paris in order to discuss some outstanding grievances about the Peace of St. Germain with the king. On August 22, an attempt was made on Coligny's life. The would-be assassin, Maurevert, escaped in the ensuing confusion and it is still difficult today to decide who was ultimately responsible for the attack. History records three possible candidates:

* The Guises: the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Aumale are the most likely suspects. The leaders of the Catholic party, they wanted to avenge the death of Francois of Guise, believed by them to have been murdered by Coligny ten years previously. The shot aimed at the admiral came from a house belonging to the Guises.

* The Duke of Alba, who governed the Netherlands on behalf of Philip II: Coligny planned to lead a campaign in the Netherlands to liberate the region from Spanish control. During the summer, he had secretly dispatched a number of troops to help the Protestants in Mons, who were besieged by the Duke of Alba. So the admiral was a real threat to the latter.

* Catherine de' Medici: according to tradition, the Queen Mother worried that the king was increasingly becoming dominated by Coligny. Amongst other things, Catherine feared that Coligny's influence would drag France into a war with Spain over the Netherlands. Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe in her culpability today, given the efforts the Queen Mother had made to ensure the peace and tranquility of the state. If she was not the author of the assassination attempt however, would she at least have been aware of what the Guises or the Spanish were planning?

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The massacres

The attempted assassination of Coligny was the event which triggered the crisis which would lead to the massacre. Admiral de Coligny was the most respected Huguenot leader. Aware of the danger from the Protestants, the king and his court visited Coligny on his sickbed and promised him the culprits would be punished. While the Queen Mother was eating dinner, Protestants burst in to demand justice. Fears of Huguenot reprisals grew. Coligny's brother-in-law led a 4,000-strong army camped just outside Paris [2] and, though there is no evidence it was planning to attack, Catholics in the city feared it might take revenge on the Guises or the city populace itself. That very evening, Catherine held a meeting at the Tuileries Palace with her Italian advisers and Baron de Retz.

On the evening of August 23, Catherine went to see the king to discuss the crisis. Though no details of the meeting survive, it is obvious that Charles IX and his mother took the decision to eliminate the Protestant leaders, with the exception of the princes of the blood, Henri of Navarre and the Prince of Condé. According to an unsubstantiated tradition, he angrily exclaimed: "Well then, so be it! Kill them! But kill them all! Don't leave a single one alive to reproach me!"

Shortly after this decision, the municipal authorities of Paris were summoned. They were ordered to shut the city gates and to arm the citizenry in order to prevent any attempt at an uprising. The king's Swiss Guard was given the task of killing a list of leading Protestants. It is difficult today to determine the exact chronology of events and to know the moment the killing began. It seems a signal was given by ringing bells for matins (between midnight and dawn) at the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, near the Louvre, which was the parish church of the kings of France. Before this, the Swiss guards had expelled the Protestant nobles from the Louvre palace and then slaughtered them in the streets. Admiral Coligny was dragged from his bed by the Duke of Guise himself, killed, and his body thrown out of the window. The tension that had been building since the Peace of St. Germain now exploded in a wave of popular violence. The common people began to hunt Protestants throughout the city. The ferocity of the slaughter was incredible. Chains were used to block streets so that Protestants could not escape from their houses. Women and children were butchered in cold blood. The massacre lasted several days, despite the king's attempts to stop it. Among the slain were the composer Claude Goudimel and the philosopher Petrus Ramus.

From August to October, similar apparently spontaneous massacres of Huguenots took place in other towns, such as Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Bourges, Rouen, and Orléans. The number of victims is unknown, with figures varying between 2,000 and 100,000.