ces, in order to estrange them
still more from France; but he wrote on the margin of Ayamonte's
instructions, that it was uncertain how long previously the purpose had
subsisted.[87] Juan and Diego de Zuniga, his ambassadors at Rome and at
Paris, were convinced that the long display of enmity to Spain was
genuine, that the death of Coligny had been decided at the last moment,
and that the rest was not the effect of design.[88] This opinion found
friends at first in Spain. The General of the Franciscans undertook to
explode it. He assured Philip that he had seen the King and the
Queen-mother two years before, and had found them already so intent on
the massacre that he wondered how anybody could have the courage to
detract from their merit by denying it.[89] This view generally
prevailed in Spain. Mendoca knows not which to admire more, the loyal
and Catholic inhabitants of Paris, or Charles, who justified his title
of the most Christian King by helping with his own hands to slaughter
his subjects.[90] Mariana witnessed the carnage, and imagined that it
must gladden every Catholic heart. Other Spaniards were gratified to
think that it had been contrived with Alva at Bayonne.

Alva himself did not judge the event by the same light as Philip. He
also had distrusted the French Government; but he had not feared it
during the ascendency of the Huguenots. Their fall appeared to him to
strengthen France. In public he rejoiced with the rest. He complimented
Charles on his valour and his religion, and claimed his own share of
merit. But he warned Philip that things had not changed favourably for
Spain, and that the King of France was now a formidable neighbour.[91]
For himself, he said, he never would have committed so base a deed.

The seven Catholic Cantons had their own reason for congratulation.
Their countrymen had been busy actors on the scene; and three soldiers
of the Swiss guard of Anjou were named as the slayers of the
Admiral.[92] On the 2nd of October they agreed to raise 6000 men for the
King's service. At the following Diet they demanded the expulsion of
the fugitive Huguenots who had taken refuge in the Protestant parts of
the Confederation. They made overtures to the Pope for a secret alliance
against their Confederates.[93]

In Italy, where the life of a heretic was cheap, their wholesale
destruction was confessed a highly politic and ingenious act. Even the
sage Venetians were constrained to celebrate it with