Not many days after the massacre, Catharine de Medici saw the mistake she had made in allowing the Guises a free hand, and she and the King did their best by protestations to Walsingham, and through Fénélon and Castelnau de la Mauvissière, to draw closer to Elizabeth again. Alençon did much more. He went to Walsingham, swore vengeance upon the murderers, and expressed his intention of escaping from court and secretly flying to England. By an emissary of his own he sent an extravagant love-letter to the Queen, and ostentatiously took the Huguenot side, whilst Anjou was on the side of the League. Elizabeth did not wish to break with France, for her safety once more depended upon avoiding isolation; but she was still deeply distrustful. Smith, in sending the Queen’s answer to Walsingham, quaintly defines her attitude towards the French: “You may perceive by her Majesty’s answer, that she will not refuse the interview nor marriage, but yet she cometh near to them _tam timido et suspenso pede_, that they may have good cause to doubt. The answer to De la Mothe is _addulced_ so much as may, for she would have it so. You have a busie piece of work to decypher that which in words is designed to the extremitie, in deeds is more than manifest; neither you shall open the one, nor shall they cloak the other. The best is, thank God, we stand upon our guard, nor I trust shall be taken and killed asleep, as Coligny was. The greatest matter for her Majestie, and our safety and defence, is earnestly of us attempted, nor yet achieved, nor utterly in despair, but rather in hope.”[359]