These reviews were first published in Arquebusier, the journal of the Pike & Shot Society. This specializes in warfare of the renaissance period, 1400-1720. Anyone interested in joining should contact Stephen Ede-Borrett, 29 Queens Drive, Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, EN8 7PR, U.K.

A City in Conflict: Troyes during the French Wars of Religion by Penny Roberts. Manchester University Press. 1996. Studies in Early Modern European History series. ISBN 0-7190-4694-7. £ 40 (Hdbk). xi + 228 pages.

The disadvantage of big picture books such as Holt's or specialised studies like Woods' (see reviews elsewhere) is that they can rarely convey to the reader what war in the early modern world meant to the day-to-day lives of the ordinary person. This is usually best achieved by studies dealing with towns, cities or localised areas where it becomes possible to trace the fortunes of individuals - the little men, over the course of the war; this is such a study. Troyes, located near the north-eastern border of France in the Champagne region, was the seventh largest city in France by the time of the Wars of

Religion, with a population of 30,000. Despite the strongly catholic sentiments of the area, Troyes developed a sizeable Huguenot population prior to the outbreak of the wars, a factor significantly influenced by its location on the road between Geneva and Paris. The author traces much of the history of the Huguenots in the city through the eyes of one Nicolas Pithou, a lawyer, municipal Avocet, member of a well-to-do Troyen family, and a lay elder in the Reformed Church.

The expansion of this church continued more or less unchecked until the outbreak of the first War of Religion in 1562 when the catholic duke of Guise massacred a Protestant congregation in the nearby town of Vassey.

Anxiety amongst the Huguenots for their safety resulted in their launching a coup d'etat and seizing the city gates; they peacefully relinquished their control a few days later, but this incident in combination with the rising mood of catholic militancy in France marked the beginning of widespread and relentless persecution of the Reformed Religion.This culminated in Troyes own version of the St. Bartholomew Day massacre when its leading Huguenot citizens were arrested and placed in prison, supposedly for their own protection, and then systematically butchered with the connivance of the city council. The repressions and massacre lead to many Protestants fleeing and many more converting back to Catholicism, marking the effective end of the Reformed Church in Troyes - the few that were left were so small in number that they were no longer deemed to be a threat and were largely left alone.

In 1588 the Catholic league seized control of the city and the citizens found themselves under the hand of an extremist and ruthless government. An unsuccessful Royalist assault launched two years, later resulted in a mob murdering all the Huguenot prisoners of war in the city. However following the conversion of Henry of Navarre to Catholicism in 1594, the city submitted to Royalist authority, bringing to an end its part in the Wars of Religion.

The book is not without its faults. The author has left virtually all her numerous contemporary quotations in their original French with no translation. This might be acceptable for the Phd. thesis from which the book emerged as that would have had only a limited, specialist audience.

However, a published book should be aimed at a wider public and unfortunately for readers lacking a reasonable command of the French language, it only serves to disrupt what is an otherwise well-written narrative. In addition the book would have benefitted from a glossary to explain many of the individual terms that the author chooses to leave in French. For example, the following sentence discusses the Protestant's search for a place of worship: "The Huguenots, keen to show their obedience, left their barn in the rue du Bois for an external location loaned to them by the arquebusiers."

An appendix suggests that Troyes employed a handful of soldiers on a permanent basis even in peacetime so that the Huguenots may have been offered the use of a firing range as an area to conduct their services, however this is by no means clear from the text. Aside from these criticisms, the book is, as I have said, well-written and would prove useful as background reading to those members interested in the Wars of Religion and would help them in gaining an understanding of the small picture of the wars.