linguistic:translation, quality:corruption
Regency of Catherine de' Medici

When Francis II died on 5 December 1560, his mother Catherine de' Medici became regent for her second son, the nine year old Charles IX. With the state financially exhausted by the Italian Wars, Catherine had to preserve the independence of the monarchy from a range of competing factions led by powerful nobles, each of whom controlled what were essentially private armies. To offset the Guise or "Guisard", she agreed a deal in which Antoine of Navarre renounced any claim to the regency in return for Condé's release and the position of Lieutenant-General of France.

Catherine had several options for dealing with "heresy", including continuing Henry's II's failed policy of eradication, an approach backed by Catholic ultras such as François de Tournon, or converting the monarchy to Calvinism, as preferred by de Bèze. A middle path between these two extremes was allowing both religions to be openly practised in France at least temporarily, or the Guisard compromise of scaling back persecution but not permitting toleration. For the moment she held to the Guisard line.

Before his death, Francis II had called the first Estates General held since 1484, which in December 1560 assembled in Orléans to discuss topics which included taxation and religion. It made little progress on the latter, other than agreeing to pardon those convicted of religious offences in the prior year. Since this was clearly unacceptable to Condé and his followers, Catherine bypassed the Estates and enacted conciliatory measures such as the Edict of 19 April 1561 and the Edict of July. This recognised Catholicism as the state religion but confirmed previous measures reducing penalties for "heresy".

The Estates then approved the Colloquy of Poissy, which began its session on 8 September 1561, with the Protestants led by de Bèze and the Catholics by Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, brother of the Duke of Guise. The two sides initially sought to accommodate Protestant forms of worship within the existing church but this proved impossible. By the time the Colloquy ended on 8 October, it was clear the divide between Catholic and Protestant theology was too wide to be bridged. With their options narrowing, the government attempted to quell escalating disorder in the provinces by passing the Edict of Saint-Germain, which allowed Protestants to worship in public outside towns and in private inside them. On 1 March, Guise family retainers attacked a Calvinist service in Champagne, leading to what became known as the massacre of Vassy. This seemed to confirm Huguenot fears that the Guisards had no intention of compromising and is generally seen as the spark which led to open hostilities between the two religions.