The assassination of François de Guise by Poltrot de Méré on 24 February 1563 exercised a considerable impact on public opinion. While Protestants celebrated, Catholics paid homage to the deceased in the form of verses written in French and Latin. His tribute was orchestrated by the de Guise family, who were responsible for the publication, via the Parisian bookseller, Thomas Richard, of a salvo of pamphlets distributed both in France and beyond its borders. This article examines the historical circumstances of the death of François de Lorraine in an attempt to shed light on the literary audiences, i.e., the Protestant and Catholic groups who gathered together to praise either the victim or the assassin. In this political, religious, and literary controversy of 1563, both sides turned to publication to spread their propaganda and to unite their supporters.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Rouget, F., (2025), "L’assassinat de François de Lorraine (1563) et la polarisation des publics", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Rouget, François. "L’assassinat de François de Lorraine (1563) et la polarisation des publics." Renaissance and Reformation 42 (1): 2019. 95-112. DOI: 10.7202/1064520ar. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.