Catherine, helpless between the party of Madame d’Etampes and the party of the Senechale (such was Diane’s title during the reign of Francois I.), which divided the court and politics into factions for these mortal enemies, endeavored to make herself the friend of both Diane de Poitiers and Madame d’Etampes. She, who was destined to become so great a queen, played the part of a servant. Thus she served her apprenticeship in that double-faced policy which was ever the secret motor of her life. Later, the _queen_ was to stand between Catholics and Calvinists, just as the _woman_ had stood for ten years between Madame d’Etampes and Madame de Poitiers. She studied the contradictions of French politics; she saw Francois I. sustaining Calvin and the Lutherans in order to embarrass Charles V., and then, after secretly and patiently protecting the Reformation in Germany, and tolerating the residence of Calvin at the court of Navarre, he suddenly turned against it with excessive rigor. Catherine beheld on the one hand the court, and the women of the court, playing with the fire of heresy, and on the other, Diane at the head of the Catholic party with the Guises, solely because the Duchesse d’Etampes supported Calvin and the Protestants. Such was the political education of this queen, who saw in the cabinet of the king of France the same errors committed as in the house of the Medici. The dauphin opposed his father in everything; he was a bad son. He forgot the cruel but most vital maxim of royalty, namely, that thrones need solidarity; and that a son who creates opposition during the lifetime of his father must follow that father’s policy when he mounts the throne. Spinosa, who was as great a statesman as he was a philosopher, said--in the case of one king succeeding another by insurrection or crime,-- “If the new king desires to secure the safety of his throne and of his own life he must show such ardor in avenging the death of his predecessor that no one shall feel a desire to commit the same crime. But to avenge it _worthily_ it is not enough to shed the blood of his subjects, he must approve the axioms of the king he replaces, and take the same course in governing.”