As Marlowe's plays are Older Than Steam and this one is based on historical events, all spoilers on this page are unmarked.
"And then the watchword being given, a bell shall ring,
Which when they hear, they shall begin to kill:
And never cease until that bell shall cease "
Which when they hear, they shall begin to kill:
And never cease until that bell shall cease "
— The Duke of Guise (act I, scene 4)
The Massacre at Paris, possibly originally known as The Tragedy of the Guise, is a 16th century play by Christopher Marlowe, which only survives to modern times in an modified, patchwork form.
The plot is a fictionalised version of the historical 'War of the Three Henrys', with France's Catholic queen mother and the villainous Duke of Guise conspiring to assassinate the Protestant leaders of Navarre and exterminate all those they view as heretics.
When the king of Navarre manages to escape and retaliate, France's newly crowned king considers changing sides and allying with Navarre against Guise. But there's much blood on his hands, and it may not be washed away quite so easily.
The play is wholeheartedly supportive of Navarre and its Protestant king, with the Catholics depicted as murderous fanatics.
The Massacre at Paris provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affair Letters: Guise inspects the letter his wife is writing and discovers it's actually a love letter to her lover Mugeroun.
- Assassination Attempt:
- The old queen of Navarre, the king's mother, is poisoned by perfumed gloves gifted to her by the Duke of Guise's apothecary.
- Immediately after the old queen of Navarre is poisoned, as her companions gather around her body, a sniper tries to kill the Lord High Admiral. The shot only hits his arm, but the Duke of Guise's men later go to his house and kill him in his sickbed.
- Church Militant: The Guisian mob are presented as a merciless Catholic force who kill Lutherans and all other heretics who offend their faith.
- Dead Guy on Display: Gonzago throws the Admiral's body down from his bedroom window into the street below, partly so that Guise can be confident they murdered the right man. Once Guise has checked it the Duke of Anjou decides to cut the head and hands from the corpse and send them to the pope. His body is later hanged from a tree - until Guise is offended by the smell and has it thrown into a ditch.
- A Deadly Affair: Guise discovers Love Letters from his wife to Mugeroun. As he's already got a small army of killers at his beck and call, he gets them to murder Mugeroun as well as their usual protestant targets.
- Decapitation Presentation: The Duke of Anjou gives orders for the Admiral's head and hands to be severed and sent to the pope as a gift.
- Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: Guise's band of killers wear white crosses on their helmets and tie white scarves around their arms. Anyone who's not dressed that way is viewed as a potential heretic.
- Ear Ache: Mugeroun catches a cutpurse slicing the gold buttons off his cloak, so slices the man's ear off in retaliation. He offers to return the ear if the thief returns the buttons.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
- The old queen of Navarre is never named in script or dialogue, only referred to as the old queen or the queen mother. Her Real Life counterpart was Jeanne III.
- The Admiral is simply the 'Lord High Admiral', with no name given in the script or used by other characters. His Real Life equivalent was Gaspard de Coligny (who was widely believed to be responsible for the assassination of Guise's father).
- George Lucas Altered Version: Scholars are confident that the surviving version of the play is too short and not exactly what Marlowe wrote. The most popular theory is that actors who’d performed Marlowe's version tried to rewrite an incomplete version from memory.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Catherine, Queen Mother of France, is Guise's royal patron and wholeheartedly behind the massacre. Even though she seems pleasant and supportive when Navarre marries her daughter Margaret, she's already plotting his death.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: In Real Life the father of Henry I, Duke of Guise, was assassinated by Huguenots earlier in the French Wars of Religion - and Gaspard de Coligny (the basis for the play's Admiral, who Guise orders assassinated) was believed to have orchestrated it. In addition, the real Guise was no friend of France's queen mother and, although he planned the murder of Paris's protestant leadership, Guise was reportedly appalled when it became a wider massacre, even using his own house to shelter some protestants. The play's version is simply a villain, with no mention of his qualms, his family history or his reasons for killing the Admiral.
- Killed Offscreen: The Duke Joyeux is introduced when he's appointed as general of France's army and sent to defeat Navarre. The next scene opens with Navarre's forces shouting that Joyeux has been slain.
- Poisoned Weapons: The Friar who kills Henry III apparently used a poisoned blade.
- Poison Is Evil: The Duke of Guise's apothecary murders the old queen of Navarre, the king's mother, by gifting her a pair of perfumed gloves laced with poison.
- Token Good Teammate: catholic theologian Talaeus attempts to shield protestant theologian Ramus from the murderers, saying both he and Ramus are christians. It doesn't work.
- Wedding Finale: Inverted, as the very first scene is at the King of Navarre's wedding to Margaret, the King of France's sister.
- We Hardly Knew Ye:
- The Old Queen of Navarre is present, but has no dialogue, for her son's wedding in the first scene of the play. She reappears two scenes later. accepts a gift of scented gloves from a well-wisher - and is promptly killed by the poison infused into them.
- The Duke Joyeux is introduced when he's appointed as general of France's army and sent to defeat Navarre. He gets one line of dialogue, thanking the king, and leaves to pursue his mission. The next scene opens with Navarre's troops celebrating his death.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Duke Dumaine, brother to Guise and the Cardinal Lorraine, reappears in one scene after their murders. He and the Friar plot Henry III's assassination, but there's no mention of his fate after the Friar succeeds and kills the king. His Real Life equivalent Charles de Guise, Duke of Mayenne, eventually negotiated peace with the new King Henry IV (the former King of Navarre), and was still alive two decades after the play's debut, so contemporary audiences may not have needed the play to explain his fate.
