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====Weakened Huguenot CauseWhat happened to the Huguenots after the massacre?====
[[File: Bart Three.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|Contemporary woodcut of the St Bartholomew Day’s Massacre]]
The massacres greatly weakened the Huguenot cause. The entire leadership of the French Protestants was either killed or arrested. The loss of Admiral Coligny was a particular blow to the French Protestant cause.
Many of those who abjured their Protestant faith did so in order to save their lives. They were forced to abjure their faith at the point of the sword or after torture. However, for the majority of the Huguenot population, the massacre proved to them that there could be no compromise with the Catholics or the king.
Many Huguenot preachers denounced the Catholic Church as the Anti-Christ and called for an unending struggle against it. The Massacres made the French Protestants more committed to their struggles. As a result, the war became even bloodier and more brutal.<ref> Fernández-Armesto, and Wilson, p. 237</ref> The religious wars that followed the St Bartholomew Day’s Massacre became even bloodier and the rules of war no longer applied to the conflict. The Huguenots knew that they faced extermination if they were defeated and this prolonged the conflict. After the St Bartholomew Day’s massacre, France suffered through a series of religious wars until 1598.<ref>Fernández-Armesto, and Wilson, p. 229</ref>
The St Bartholomew Day’s Massacre resulted in the death of up to 10,000 people. It changed the nature of the religious war in France. The wars became more vicious after the massacre the numbers of people killed rose greatly. This reflected the sectarian hatreds that were unleashed by the massacres. The massacre was intended to end the war or at least to weaken the Huguenot cause.
The massacre did weaken the French Protestants, but they rallied and fought fiercely. After the massacre, the Huegnots Huguenots knew that defeat meant extermination. They were also decidedly more militant and less willing, to compromise. The massacre did not end the war as expected by Guise and others it only prolonged the war. From a strategic point of view, the massacre was a complete failure. The religious wars dragged on until 1598 and by the time some historians based on parish records believe that some three million people died as a direct and indirect consequence of the sectarian conflicts.<ref> Dienfendorf, p. 155</ref> <div class="portal" style="width:85%;">
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