City Gates (Paris, 1572)

Towering iron-bound gates guard the entrances to 1572 Paris. Catherine de' Medici demands their immediate closure as the price for sparing Henri of Navarre, trapping thousands of Huguenots inside city walls with no path to escape. Soldiers bolt the heavy portals shut under Tavannes' orders just before dawn, as massacre bells toll and mob violence erupts within. These barriers seal the royal purge, their resounding clangs marking the doom of the trapped heretics amid rising cries from the streets.