COLIGNI, GASPARD DE, admiral of France, was born at Châtillon-sur-Loin in 1517. He signalized himself in his youth, during the reigns of Francis I. and Henri II., and was made colonel of infantry and admiral of France in 1552. He was employed by Henri II. in the most important affairs; but after the death of that prince he embraced the reformed religion, and became the chief of the Huguenot Protestant party. He strongly opposed the house of Guise, and rendered this opposition so formidable, that it was thought he would have overturned the French government. On the peace concluded after the battles of Jarnac and Moncontour, Charles IX. deluded Coligni into security by his deceitful favours; and though he recovered from one attempt on his life, when he attended the nuptials of the prince of Navarre, yet he fell in the massacre on St Bartholomew's day, 24th August 1572, and his body was treated with wanton brutality by a fanatical and excited populace. His head was cut off and sent to Catharine de' Medici; but his cousin Montmorency secretly buried the body in the vaults of the chateau of Chantilly. In 1785 his remains were removed by Montesquieu to Maupertuis, where a monument was erected to his memory. History has preserved the name of the wretch who assassinated the admiral. He was a Bohemian or Gipsy, called Béme, whom Guise had employed for the purpose, and who, even on that day of blood, especially distinguished himself by his wanton barbarities. See FRANCE.