onference in 1565, and would have been
executed at Moulins in 1566, but for unforeseen circumstances,
no protests against the Florida butchery could have been
sincere. On the other hand, if Catharine de' Medici was
earnest and persistent in her demand for the punishment of
Menendez, it is not conceivable that her mind should have been
then entertaining the project of the Parisian matins. The
extant correspondence between the French queen mother and her
envoy at the court of Madrid may fairly be said to set at rest
all doubts respecting her attitude. She was indignant,
determined, and outspoken.

So slowly did news travel in the sixteenth century, that it
was not until the eighteenth of February, 1566, that
Forquevaulx, from Madrid, despatched to the King of France a
first account of the events that had occurred in Florida
nearly five months before. The ambassador seems to have
expressed becoming indignation in the interviews he sought
with the Duke of Alva, repudiating with dignity the suggestion
that the blame should be laid upon Coligny, for having abused
his authority as admiral to set on foot a piratical expedition
into the territories of a friendly prince; and holding forth
no encouragement to believe that Charles would disavow
Coligny's acts. He told Alva distinctly that Menendez was a
butcher rather than a good soldier ("plus digne bourreau que
bon soldat," Forquevaulx to Charles IX., March 16, 1566,
Gaffarel, 425). He declared to him that the Turks had never
exhibited such inhumanity to their prisoners at Castelnovo or
at Gerbes--in fact, never had barbarians displayed such
cruelty. As a Frenchman, he assured the Spaniard that he
shuddered when he thought of so execrable a deed, and that it
appeared to him that God would not leave it unpunished (Ibid.,
426).

Catharine's own language to the Spanish ambassador, Don
Francez de Alava, was not less frank. "As their common
mother," she said, "I can but have an incredible grief at
heart, when I hear that between princes so closely bound as
friends, allies, and relations, as these two kings, and in so
good a peace, and at a time when such great offices of
friendship are observed between them, so horrible a carnage
has been committed on the subjects of my son, the King of