The report of these atrocities, tardily reaching the Old World, called forth an almost universal cry of horror. Fair-minded men of both communions stigmatized the conduct of Menendez and his companions as sheer murder; for had not the French colonists of Florida been attacked before being summoned to surrender, and butchered in cold blood after being denied even such terms as were customarily accorded to Turks and other infidels? Among princes, Philip alone applauded the deed, and seemed only to regret that faith had been kept with any of the detested Huguenots (Gaffarel, 234, 245). It has been commonly supposed that whatever indignation was shown by Catharine de' Medici and her son, was merely assumed in deference to the popular clamor, and that but a feeble remonstrance was really uttered. This supineness would be readily explicable upon the hypothesis of the long premeditation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. If the treacherous murder of Admiral Coligny and the other great Huguenot leaders had indeed been deliberately planned from the time of the Bayonne conference 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.