The wedding of the Protestant Henry, King of Navarre, and Marguerite de Valois, the King's sister, brought a great number of Huguenot notables to Paris, and political and religious tensions were running extremely high.
 On 22 August 1572, the day after the end of the wedding festivities, Coligny was shot in the street by a man called Maurevert from a house belonging to de Guise.
However, the bullets only tore a finger from his right hand and shattered his left elbow.
The would-be assassin escaped.

It never became clear who, if anyone, had hired or encouraged Maurevert to carry out the attempt but historians generally centre on three possibilities: the Guise family, Catherine de Medici, or the duke of Alba on behalf of Philip II of Spain.
The King sent his own physician to treat Coligny and even visited him, but the queen mother prevented all private discourse between them.

The Catholics now feared Huguenot retaliation for the attempt on Coligny's life, and it was decided to pre-emptively assassinate their leadership, in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
 As one of the main targets, on the night of 24 August, Coligny was attacked in his lodgings by a group led by Guise.
 After several of his entourage had been killed, a servant of the new Duke of Guise, Charles Danowitz or Jean Charles D´Ianowitz (Karel z Janovic), who was generally known as Besme or Bême, plunged a sword through Coligny's breast and threw his body out of a window to his master's feet.
Coligny finally died when another of Guise's associates chopped off his head.

Historian Barbara B. Diefendorf wrote that Simon Vigor had "said if the King ordered the Admiral (Coligny) killed, 'it would be wicked not to kill him'.
With these words, the most popular preacher in Paris legitimised in advance the events of St. Bartholomew's Day."

Coligny's papers were seized and burned by the queen mother; among them, according to Brantôme, was a history of the civil war, "very fair and well-written, and worthy of publication".
The wedding of the Protestant Henry, King of Navarre, and Marguerite de Valois, the King's sister, brought a great number of Huguenot notables to Paris, and political and religious tensions were running extremely high.  On 22 August 1572, the day after the end of the wedding festivities, Coligny was shot in the street by a man called Maurevert from a house belonging to de Guise. However, the bullets only tore a finger from his right hand and shattered his left elbow. The would-be assassin escaped.
It never became clear who, if anyone, had hired or encouraged Maurevert to carry out the attempt but historians generally centre on three possibilities: the Guise family, Catherine de Medici, or the duke of Alba on behalf of Philip II of Spain. The King sent his own physician to treat Coligny and even visited him, but the queen mother prevented all private discourse between them.
The Catholics now feared Huguenot retaliation for the attempt on Coligny's life, and it was decided to pre-emptively assassinate their leadership, in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.  As one of the main targets, on the night of 24 August, Coligny was attacked in his lodgings by a group led by Guise.  After several of his entourage had been killed, a servant of the new Duke of Guise, Charles Danowitz or Jean Charles D´Ianowitz (Karel z Janovic), who was generally known as Besme or Bême, plunged a sword through Coligny's breast and threw his body out of a window to his master's feet. Coligny finally died when another of Guise's associates chopped off his head.
Historian Barbara B. Diefendorf wrote that Simon Vigor had "said if the King ordered the Admiral (Coligny) killed, 'it would be wicked not to kill him'. With these words, the most popular preacher in Paris legitimised in advance the events of St. Bartholomew's Day."
Coligny's papers were seized and burned by the queen mother; among them, according to Brantôme, was a history of the civil war, "very fair and well-written, and worthy of publication".
Gaspard II de Coligny