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A quick note about our show.

We do a lot of research for our stories, but we also aren't your boring high school history class,

so some details and scenes are dramatized.

And a heads up that today's episode discusses religious massacres and acts of violence.

It also contains some salty language.

Please be advised.

It's a hot, sticky day in August of 1572, and Catherine de Medici is holed up in the Louvre.

The 53-year-old queen mother walks over to a window, pulls back the curtain, and looks outside.

Paris, the city she's loved ruling over for the past decade, is in ruins.

Just a week ago, the city was full of music, dancing, and wedding celebrations for

Catherine's daughter.

Now, it feels like the upside down in stranger things. Houses are boarded up, stores have been ransacked, debris

litters the streets, and so do dead bodies.

Oh my god. Catherine forces herself to look at the carnage, but can only stomach it for a few

seconds.

She pushes away from the window and starts to pace.

It all started after Catherine convinced her son, King Charles, to kill a few select Protestant leaders.

The leaders were trying to kill them, so payback was only fair, right?

Charles agreed, and then channeled Metallica and screamed,

Kill them all.

...