While Machiavelli was officially banned in the Catholic world, he was also hated by the Protestants. In 1572, the Catholic leadership of France attempted to wipe out France's Protestant population, the Huguenots. In several weeks of massacres beginning on St. Bartholomew's Day, an estimated 50,000 Huguenots were killed. The power behind the throne of France was Catherine de Medici, an Italian and a Catholic, and a member of the family for whom Machiavelli had written The Prince. Long-dead Machiavelli took blame for the incident, as it was supposed that Catherine had looked to his philosophies in planning the massacres. In Protestant England, Machiavelli became a stock character of evil on the theatrical stage. For example, in Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta, the character of "Machiavel" presents the prologue introducing the play's villainous title character, who gleefully follows Machiavellian precepts. To be so universally hated, however, Machiavelli also had to be widely read, as Marlowe's Machiavel points out: "Admir'd I am of those who hate me most. Though some speak openly against my books, Yet will they read me. . . ."
Of the many books specifically refuting The Prince, two deserve special mention. The first, written in 1576, was the Discours sur les moyens de bien gouverner contre Nicolas Machiavel by Innocent Gentillet. Gentillet, a Huguenot author protesting the St. Bartholomew's Day massacres, did more to establish Machiavelli's devilish reputation than did The Prince itself. The most famous response to The Prince came from Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. In 1740 he wrote, with the help of the French philosopher Voltaire, the Anti-Machiavel, a vigorous condemnation of Machiavelli's principles. Frederick, like many other royalists, feared the implication in The Prince that anyone who was strong enough to seize power was entitled to keep it, seeing it as an invitation to regicide. Ironically, Frederick would prove to be a true Machiavellian—treacherous, ruthless, and enthusiastic in his pursuit of power.
