Note 1053 — Chapter XVIII · (continued 2)

Dr. White (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 459) has tabulated the estimates, nine in number, afforded by twenty-one distinct authorities. The lowest estimate—1,000 victims—is that of the Abbé Caveyrac, whose undisguised aim was to place the number as low as possible, so as to palliate the atrocity of the massacre. Being based apparently upon the number of the names of victims that have been recorded, it may be dismissed as unworthy of consideration. The highest estimate, of 10,000, though adopted by such writers as the authors of the Reveille-Matin and the Mémoires de l'estat de France, is vague or excessive. The Tocsain and Agrippa d'Aubigné are, perhaps, too moderate in respectively stating the number as 2,000 and 3,000. On the whole, it appears to me, the contribution of Paris to the massacre of the Huguenots may be set down with the greatest probability at between 4,000 and 5,000 persons of all ages and conditions. Von Botzheim, who estimates the total at 8,000 (F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beiträge, p. 120), makes 500 of these to be women (Ibid., p. 119).