Jean Marie Constant's book is dedicated to one of the most dramatic periods in the history of France - the Wars of Religion, which lasted almost forty years and claimed thousands of human lives. The confrontation between Catholics and Huguenots in this country was part of a pan-European process that began in the 16th century and known as the Reformation. Analyzing historical documents, drawing on memoirs and archival research by modern researchers, the author shows that interfaith strife and manifestations of religious fanaticism are equally disgusting from both outsiders dominant and from the persecuted religion. The author's analysis of the electoral system that existed in France in those distant times is of undoubted interest.

For anyone interested in the history of religious wars in Europe in the 16th century, the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the history of Western confessions, the history of France during the Renaissance.