Toute pleine de blâme et pleine de louange,
Elle soutint l'Etat, et l'Etat mit à bas;
Elle fit maints accords et pas moins de débats;
Elle enfanta trois rois et trois guerres civiles,
Fit bâtir des châteaux et ruiner des villes,
Fit bien de bonnes lois et de mauvais édits.
Souhaite-lui, passant, enfer et paradis."

[The queen lying here was both devil and angel, blamed and praised;
she both put down and upheld the state; she caused many an agreement
and no end of disputes; she produced three kings and three civil wars;
she built castles and ruined cities, made many good laws and many bad
decrees. Wish her, passer-by, hell and paradise.]

With the reign of Henry IV.—the first king of the house of Bourbon,
and the first king of the sixteenth century with a will of his own and
the courage to assert it—begins a period of revelling, debauch, and
the most depraved immorality. Three mistresses in turn controlled
him—morally, not politically.

Henry was master of his own will, and, had he desired to do so, could
have overcome his evil tendencies; instead, he openly countenanced and
even encouraged dissoluteness and elegant debauchery, as long as he
himself was not deprived of the lady upon whom his capricious fancy
happened to fall. His advances were but seldom repulsed; but upon
making his usual audacious proposals to the Marquise de Guercheville,
he was informed that she was of too insignificant a house to be the
king's wife and of too good a race to be his mistress; and when the
king, in spite of this rebuff, made her lady of honor to his wife,
Marie de' Medici, she continued to resist him and remained virtuous.