Hyperbole.
Perhaps hyperbole, perhaps not. What seems harmless to you may inflame the heck out of others. Times were pretty tough before tolerance evolved.
From The French Wars of Religion by Mack P. Holt: The 1562 'Edict of January' by (Catholic) Catherine de Medici (then the regent of the young king) was "a very narrow and limited recognition of the Protestants' right to exist, however, forbidding them to practice or worship inside all towns, to assemble anywhere at night, and to raise arms. But for the first time in their short history in France, they were now allowed to preach openly in the countryside by day..." This was a big advance. Protestants had previously been burned and hanged.
"Catholic reaction to the edict...erupted in violence. ... The first shots were fired by troops of the [Catholic] duke of Guise, as he encountered a group of unarmed Protestants worshiping inside the town of Vassey." This happened in 1662. Roughly 40 Protestants died from the confrontation and another 25 were likely to die and more than 100 were wounded (The French Wars of Religion, Selected Documents by David Potter).
The duke of Guise blamed it on the Protestants, but I've read somewhere that most scholars accept the Protestant view of the massacre though opinions have always been divided. This was the opening of the first of the French Wars of Religion.