Francis II., king of France, born in Fontainebleau, Jan. 19, 1543, died in Orleans, Dec. 5, 1560. He was the eldest son of Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici. His father had succeeded in obtaining some important advantages over the emperor Charles V. and the house of Spain, and in terminating favorably a long series of wars, chiefly in Italy and the Netherlands, against the growing might of that house. Henry died in 1559 of a wound accidentally received in a tournament. Francis, then a sickly boy of 16 years, possessed of neither character nor talent, succeeded to the throne. He had already (in April, 1558) married the daughter of James V. of Scotland, the beautiful and afterward unhappy Mary Stuart. Her influence gave the reins of government to her uncles, Francis, duke of Guise, and the cardinal of Lorraine. The arrogant sway of these two ambitious and unscrupulous princes alarmed and irritated the princes of the blood, Anthony, king of Navarre and his brother Louis of Conde, who became the leaders of a Protestant party in opposition to the court. Everything concurred to produce civil commotion.

Protestantism had penetrated, in the form of Calvinism, into France. Its spirit suited that of the feudal nobility, and the profligacy and corruption introduced by the Italian Medicis into the court and manners of France, and the influence of strangers, disposed the people to rebellion. It was by secret plots, however, rather than by open revolt, that the Protestant-princes tried to wrest power from the hands of the Guises. A great conspiracy was organized, having Conde at its head. and embracing the most prominent nobles of France. It was agreed to enter Amboise on a certain day in detached parties, to massacre the Guises, and seize the person of the king. But the plot was disclosed almost at the moment of execution, by two Protestants; the duke of Guise secretly assembled a body of troops, and cut to pieces the forces of the conspirators as they were entering the town. His triumph was stained with barbarous cruelty, and the waters of the Loire were colored with the blood of those who fell in combat or perished on the scaffold. The court gazed at the executions, as scenes of public festivity, from platforms and the windows of the castle. Arrests and executions throughout the country followed. The duke of Guise was made lieutenant general of the kingdom.

The axe was brought into play to stifle the opposition of the princes, and the inquisition was set up to repress Calvinism. A royal edict made the bishops, instead of the parliaments, judges of heresy. The Huguenots, seeing in this edict their speedy destruction, prepared to resist, and the court convoked at Fontainebleau an assembly, with the purpose of seizing the two princes of Bourbon; but they came with an escort strong enough to protect them. The princes of Lorraine convened the states general at Orleans. Conde had tried to dissemble his mortification after the failure of Araboise, and was now imprudent enough to appear. He was arrested, tried, and soon condemned to die as a traitor. The death of Francis, however, saved his life, and restored him to the leadership of the Huguenots. The young king had long suffered from an abscess in his ear, and died after a reign of 17 months, go suddenly that rumors of poison, now regarded as unfounded, spread, and were believed throughout the country; the more easily, as assassination was becoming fashionable in France, and the queen mother was renowned for her love of alchemy and the use of poisons.

Francis bequeathed to his brother and successor, Charles IX., then a boy of ten years, a treasury loaded with debt, and a state full of the elements of civil war. The regency was intrusted to Catharine de' Medici, whose intrigues fostered civil and religious dissensions.