In the year 1572, Mary's cause sustained a serious injury, by the atrocious massacre of the Hugonots in France, which exasperated all the Protestants throughout Europe, and made the very name of a Catholic Sovereign odious. Although Mary herself, so far from having lent any countenance to this massacre, had expressly avowed her unwillingness to constrain the conscience of any one, and had been all her life the strenuous advocate of toleration, yet, recollecting her connexion with Charles IX. and Catharine de Medicis, whose sanguinary fury made itself so conspicuous on this melancholy occasion, her enemies took care that she should not escape from some share of the blame. Elizabeth, in particular, taking advantage of the excitement which had been given to public feeling, used every exertion to secure the circulation of Buchanan's notorious "Detection of Mary's Doings," which had been published a short time before. She ordered Cecil to send a number of copies to Walsingham, her ambassador at Paris, that they might be presented to the King, and leading persons of the French Court. "It is not amiss," Cecil wrote, "to have divers of Buchanan's little Latin books to present, if need be, to the King, as from yourself, and likewise to some of the other noblemen of his Council; for they will serve to good effect to disgrace her, _which must be done before other purposes can be attained_." Cecil himself printed and circulated a small treatise, in the shape of a letter, from London to a friend at a distance, giving an account of the "Detection," and the credit it deserved. The publication, on the other hand, of Bishop Lesley's "Defence of Queen Mary's Honour," was positively interdicted; and Lesley was obliged to send the manuscript abroad, before he was able to present it to the world. To such low and cowardly devices were Elizabeth and her Minister under the necessity of resorting, to blacken the character of Mary, and justify their own iniquitous proceedings![180]