A major scholarly re-evaluation of the central period in the French 'wars of religion', concentrating on the reactions of France's governing groups to these wars and drawing extensively on sources not hitherto examined to illuminate the sense of crisis that existed among the French governing elite at this time. - ;The French kingdom dissolved into civil wars, known as the 'wars of religion', for a generation from 1562 to 1598. This book examines the reactions of France's governing groups to that experience. Their major political endeavour was securing peace. They attempted to achieve it throug