Gaspard de, admiral of France, was born at Châtillon-sur-Loir in 1517. He signalized himself in his youth, during the reigns of Francis I. and Henry II., and was made colonel of infantry and admiral of France in 1552. Henry II. employed him in the most important affairs; but after the death of that prince he embraced the reformed religion, and became the chief of the Hu- gonot or Protestant party. He strongly opposed the house of Guise, and rendered this opposition so formi- dable that it was thought he would have overturned the French government. On the peace concluded after the battles of Jernac and Montcontour, Charles XI. deluded Coligni into security by his deceitful favours; and though he recovered from one attempt on his life, when he attend- ed the nuptials of the prince of Navarre, yet he fell in the dreadful massacre of the Protestants perpetrated on St Bartholomew's day, 24th August 1572, and his body was treated with wanton brutality by a fanatical and ex- cited populace. History has preserved the name of the wretch who assassinated the admiral. He was a Bohem- ian or Gipsy, called Béme, whom Guise had employed for the purpose, and who, even in that day of blood, dis- tinguished himself for more wanton barbarities than his fellow murderers.