Catherine de' Medici

In France no woman has suffered from popular error so much as Catherine de' Medici. She saved the crown of France; she maintained the royal authority against factions like those of the Guises and the house of Bourbon, the Cardinals of Lorraine, the Balafres, and the Condes. Forced to combat heresy which was seeking to annihilate the monarchy, without friends, aware of treachery among the the Catholic party, foreseeing a republic in the Calvinist party, Catherine employed the most dangerous weapon of public policy,—craft. She resolved to trick and so defeat, successively, the Guises who were seeking the ruin of the house of Valois, the Bourbons who sought the crown, and the Reformers. Consequently, so long as she lived, the Valois kept the throne of France. Catherine had, in the highest degree, the sense of royalty, and she defended it with admirable courage and persistency.