page_title: François Ravaillac
section_title: Regicide
hierarchical_section_title: François Ravaillac / Biography / Regicide
caption_attribution_description: Assassination of Henry IV (Henry IV, King of France; François Ravaillac), by Gaspar Bouttats, given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1931. See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have a known author, but have been manually examined for strong evidence that the author was dead before 1939, such as approximate death dates, birth dates, floruit dates, and publication dates.
context_page_description: François Ravaillac was a French Catholic zealot who assassinated King Henry IV of France in 1610.
context_section_description: In 1609, Ravaillac claimed to have experienced a vision instructing him to convince King Henry IV to convert the Huguenots to Catholicism. Between Pentecost 1609 and May 1610, Ravaillac made three separate trips to Paris to tell his vision to the king, and lodged with Charlotte du Tillet, mistress of Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, duc d'Épernon.  Unable to meet the king, Ravaillac interpreted Henry's decision to invade the Spanish Netherlands as the start of a war against the Pope. Determined to stop him, he decided to kill the king.
  
  On 14 May 1610, Ravaillac lay in wait in the Rue de la Ferronnerie in Paris (now south of the Forum des Halles); when the king passed, his carriage was halted by a blockage in the street, and Ravaillac stabbed Henry to death. Pierre de l'Estoile, the chronicler, stated of the king:
  His coach, entering from St Honoré to Ferronnerie Street, was blocked on one side by a cart filled with wine and on the other by a cart filled with hay... Ravaillac climbed on the wheel of the above-named coach and with a knife trenchant on both sides stabbed him between the second and third ribs.
  Hercule, Duke of Montbazon riding with Henry was wounded in the attack. Ravaillac was immediately seized by police and taken to the Hôtel de Retz to avoid a mob lynching.  He was transferred to the Conciergerie.
caption: Assassination of Henry IV,
  engraving by Gaspar Bouttats.
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