have frightened the papal court, and the bull was either recalled or dropped--at least no trace is said to be found in the Constitutions of Pius the Fourth--and the proceedings against the bishops were indefinitely suspended.[305] But while Catharine felt it necessary, for the maintenance of her own authority and of the dignity of the French crown, to enter the lists boldly in behalf of the Queen of Navarre, she was none the less bent upon confirming that authority by rendering it impossible for the Huguenots ever again to take the field in opposition to the crown. A war for the sake of principle was something of which that cynical princess could not conceive. The Huguenot party was strong, according to her view, only because of the possession of powerful leaders. The religious convictions of its adherents went for nothing. Let the Condes, and the Colignies, and the Porciens, and the La Rochefoucaulds be gained over, and the people, deprived of a head, would subordinate their theology to their interest, and unity would be restored under her own rule. It was the same vain belief that alone rendered possible a few years later such a stupendous crime and folly as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Many an obscure and illiterate martyr, who had lost his life during her husband's reign, might have given her a far juster estimate of the future than her Macchiavellian education, with all its fancied shrewdness and insight into human character and motives, had furnished her. [Sidenote: Catharine's attempt to seduce Conde from the Huguenots.]