Scene of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre

On 24 August 1572, when the killing of Protestants began in Paris, the young Bourbon princes were spared because they were royal blood, and it was the men of their households who died. The full title of this painting names one of them, Briou, governor, that is tutor and guardian, of the prince of Conti. The prince, François de Bourbon, was 14 that summer, a son of the Huguenot leader Louis de Condé, who had been killed in battle three years before. Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury set aside the massacre at large and painted this one murder inside a household. He signed and dated the canvas in 1833, showed it at the Paris Salon that year, and it was bought there for the state.