They both wrote to Walsingham the belief that at last the affair would prosper in good earnest, if only the lover would take the trouble to run over to England and see the object of his affection. There are plenty of ways, said Smith, of coming over; and he would do more in an hour than we could do in two years—“Cupido ille qui vincit omnia in oculis insidet,” and so on. Everything seemed to be prospering in the wooing, though the Queen herself was no more in earnest than before; and doubtless she and Leicester laughed in their sleeves at the way they were hoodwinking some of the keenest eyes of both nations. One person they certainly164 did not deceive, and that was Catharine de Medici; for at the very moment when all this billing and cooing was going on the massacre of St. Bartholomew was being planned, and the person who was being kept in hand and cajoled into a false sense of security, notwithstanding the refusal of Charles IX. to help the Hollanders, was Elizabeth herself. But deceived though she was, she had prudence enough to mistrust the curious new attitude adopted by the French, whose one object was to draw her into a position of overt enmity to Spain in the Netherlands, whilst Charles IX. deprecated taking up such a position for himself. La Mole’s blandishments were not powerful enough for this; and after twenty days’ stay he and La Mothe left the Queen with great professions of love and affection and a gold chain worth 500 ducats for the young envoy, and came to London, where they arrived on the 27th of August. On the same day there arrived at Rye two couriers from Paris, one with letters from Walsingham to the Queen, and the other with despatches for La Mothe Fénélon, the French ambassador. Acting by order the English courier immediately on his arrival caused the authorities of the port to seize the papers of the other courier and send them together with Walsingham’s letters in all haste to the Queen at Kenilworth. The Queen was out hunting when they arrived, and read in them first as she rode the news of St. Bartholomew—overwhelmed with the great tragedy which seemed to be as much directed against herself as against the French Huguenots.

All rejoicings were stopped, mourning garb was adopted, and long, anxious conferences took the165 place of gay diversion. Before the Queen herself received the news the dire calamity had become known in London. Terrified Huguenots by the hundred, flying, as they thought, from a general massacre, were scudding across the Channel to the English ports in any craft they could get. From mouth to mouth spread the dreadful story, growing as it spread, and for a time London and the Court were given up to panic at what was assumed to be a world-wide murderous conspiracy against Protestantism. The condemned, and La Mole lost no time in getting away from a country where he could be of no more use. La Mothe was ordered by Elizabeth to keep in his house until the safety of her ambassadors in France Neo skin labcould be ascertained, and for several days La Mothe himself was but imperfectly informed as to what had happened on Navarre’s terrible wedding-day. It was not until the 7th of September that the Queen received him at Woodstock on her way to Windsor.

She and her Court were in deep mourning, and La Mothe was received in silence and with no greeting from the Queen except a cold inquiry whether the news she had heard was true. He made the best of the sad story; repeated the assertion that there was a plot of Coligny and the Huguenots to seize the Louvre; urged that the massacre was unpremeditated, and that the King was obliged to sacrifice Coligny to save himself. In the midst of his reading the King’s letter Elizabeth interrupted the ambassador and said aviation research that her knowledge of events would suffice to prevent her from being deceived, or giving entire credit to166 the King’s assertions; but even if they were all true, she did not understand why harmless women and children should have been murdered.81 La Mothe urged the continuance of the French friendship, but Elizabeth knew that such friendship would be a false one so long as the Guises ruled in the Councils of the King, and dismissed La Mothe with a plain indication of her opinion.