The Massacre of Vassy (French: massacre de Wassy) was the murder of Huguenot worshippers and citizens in an armed action by troops of the Duke of Guise, in Wassy, France on 1 March 1562. The massacre is identified as the first major event in the French Wars of Religion. The series of battles that followed concluded in the signing of the Peace of Amboise (or Pacification Treaty of Amboise) on 19 March 1563.
The events surrounding the Massacre of Vassy were famously depicted in a series of forty engravings published in Geneva seven years later.[1]