reserve Elizabeth their friend, or to prevent her at least from
becoming an open enemy. Instructions had therefore been in the first
instance dispatched to La Mothe Fenelon, the French ambassador in
England, to communicate such an account of the massacre and its motives
as suited these views, and to solicit a confirmation of the late treaty
of amity. His reception at court on this occasion was extremely solemn:
the courtiers and ladies who lined the rooms leading to the
presence-chamber were all habited in deep mourning, and not one of them
would vouchsafe a word or a smile to the ambassador, though himself a
man of honor, and one whom they had formerly received on the footing of
cordial intimacy. The queen herself, in listening to his message,
assumed an aspect more composed, but extremely cold and serious. She
expressed her horror at the idea that a sovereign could imagine himself
under a necessity of taking such vengeance on his own subjects;
represented the practicability of proceeding with them according to law,
and desired to be better informed of the reality of the treasonable
designs imputed to the Hugonots. She also declared that it would be
difficult for her to place reliance hereafter on the friendship of a
prince who had shown himself so deadly a foe to those who professed her
religion; but, at the suit of the ambassador, she consented to suspend
in some degree her judgement of the deed till further information.

Even these feeble demonstrations of sensibility to crime so enormous
were speedily laid aside. In spite of Walsingham's declared opinion,
that the demonstrations of the French court towards her were so
evidently treacherous that its open enmity was less to be dreaded than
its feigned friendship, Elizabeth suffered her indignation to evaporate
in a few severe speeches, restrained her subjects from carrying such aid
to the defenders of Rochelle as could be made a ground of serious
quarrel, and even permitted a renewal of the shocking and monstrous
overtures for her marriage with the youngest son of Catherine de' Medici
herself. By this shameless woman various proposals were now made for
bringing about a personal interview between herself and Elizabeth. She
first named England as the place of meeting, then the sea between Dover
and Calais, and afterwards the isle of Jersey; but from the first plan
she herself departed, and the others were rejected in anger by the
English council, who remarked, with a pr