Her first plan was to incapacitate all her children by plunging them
"into such licentious pleasure and voluptuous dissipation that
they were speedily unfitted for mental activity or exertion."
Most unprejudiced historians credit her with the Massacre of Saint
Bartholomew; she is said to have boasted about it to Catholic
governments and excused it to Protestant powers. For a number of
years, she had been planning the destruction of the Huguenot princes,
and as early as 1565 she and Charles IX. had an interview with the
Duke of Alva (representative of Philip II), to consult as to the means
of delivering France from heretics. It was decided that "this great
blessing could not have accomplishment save by the deaths of all the
leaders of the Huguenots."

That fearful crime, the bloody Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, is
familiar to everyone. The only excuse offered for this most heinous of
Catherine's many offences is her intense sentiment of national unity;
the actual reason for it is to be sought in the fact that as long as
the Protestants retained their prestige and influence, Catherine
and her Catholic party could not do as they pleased, could not
gain absolute control over the government. History holds her more
responsible than it does her weak son. The climax came on the occasion
of the wedding of Marguerite of Valois with the Prince of Navarre,
which meant the union of the branches—the Catholic and the
Protestant. This resulted in the first breach between the king and
Catherine; the latter at that time perpetrated one of her dastardly
deeds by poisoning the mother of the Prince of Navarre—Jeanne
d'Albret, her bitter enemy.

After the death of Charles IX., Henry III. was the sole survivor of
the four sons of Catherine. Although her power was limited during his