Why was she blamed for the horrible St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572?
Practically all of the historians I've read have dogmatically asserted that she was behind the amazingly brutal massacre of Protestant men, women, and children. Many of the historians declare that the Papacy was evidently involved in the plot to perpetrate the massacre--pointing out, among other things, that the church bells in Rome supposedly rang in celebration when word of the massacre of the hated Protestants was received in Rome.
The article says that between 5,000 and 30,000 Protestants were killed in Paris and its environs on August 23 and August 24. One supposed authority (?) said that the massacre actually lasted for more than a week and spread far from Paris, with a death total of perhaps 80,000.