The Assassination of Duke Francis of Guise, 18 February 1563

This engraving by Jacques Tortorel and Jean Perrissin, from their collection of Forty Tableaux published in Geneva around 1570, depicts the assassination of Duke Francis of Guise, fatally wounded by a pistol shot on 18 February 1563 while besieging Orléans. The attacker, Jean de Poltrot de Méré, identified in the print, was arrested the following day and executed by quartering the next month, after accusing under torture admiral Coligny and theologian Théodore de Bèze of having ordered the attack — an accusation he later retracted, without the truth ever being fully established. Guise's death, the last major military leader still able to impose his will on both camps, opened the way to the Peace of Amboise signed the very next day, ending the first War of Religion.