child every year for ten years, and was occupied with maternal cares
during the period covered by the last three years of the reign of
Francois I. and nearly the whole of the reign of Henri II. We may see
in this recurring fecundity the influence of a rival, who was able
thus to rid herself of the legitimate wife,--a barbarity of feminine
policy which must have been one of Catherine's grievances against
Diane.

Thus set aside from public life, this superior woman passed her time
in observing the self-interests of the court people and of the various
parties which were formed about her. All the Italians who had followed
her were objects of violent suspicion. After the execution of
Montecuculi the Connetable de Montmorency, Diane, and many of the
keenest politicians of the court were filled with suspicion of the
Medici; though Francois I. always repelled it. Consequently, the
Gondi, Strozzi, Ruggieri, Sardini, etc.,--in short, all those who were
called distinctively "the Italians,"--were compelled to employ greater
resources of mind, shrewd policy, and courage, to maintain themselves
at court against the weight of disfavor which pressed upon them.

During her husband's reign Catherine's amiability to Diane de Poitiers
went to such great lengths that intelligent persons must regard it as
proof of that profound dissimulation which men, events, and the
conduct of Henri II. compelled Catherine de' Medici to employ. But
they go too far when they declare that she never claimed her rights as
wife and queen. In the first place, the sense of dignity which
Catherine possessed in the highest degree forbade her claiming what
historians call her rights as a wife. The ten children of the marriage
explain Henri's conduct; and his wife's maternal occupations left him
free to pass his time with Diane de Poitiers. But the king was never