During the three following reigns, it was Catharine of Medicis who gave the tone to the court, and really ruled the kingdom. All historians concur in stating that she used prostitution as the mainspring of her policy. She had a court of sometimes two to three hundred ladies of honor, whom she employed to worm out the secrets of the politicians of the day. They were known as the Queen's Flying Squadron, and it appears they performed their duties successfully; of course, at the cost of whatever virtue or decency the court still retained. Brantome is still our authority for asserting that they introduced a new feature of debauchery; they took the initiative in affairs of this kind, and instead of yielding to the entreaties of lovers, it was they who pressed their lovers to meet them half way. He likewise informs us that they aided the establishment in France of other vices which had hitherto been peculiar to Southern and Eastern climates, by the revival of practices which had been common among the _hetairæ_ of Athens. It has been asserted that Catharine willfully tutored her children in habits of debauchery, in order to divert their minds from politics, and retain control over the kingdom, but this scandal does not appear to rest on authentic evidence. It is unquestionable, however, that Charles IX., the author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, lived in incestuous intercourse with his sister Margaret, and there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the story that Catharine more than once entertained the king and court at a banquet at which nude females served as waiters. Perhaps the best idea of the morals of the time can be obtained from the adventures of the Margaret just mentioned, who married Henry IV., King of Navarre, and afterward King of France. It is said that at the age of eleven she had two lovers, both of whom claimed to have robbed her of her virtue. Marrying the King of Navarre, she found means to leave her husband and reside at Paris, whose air suited her better than the country. Here her debaucheries were a common theme of scandal, her lovers being counted by the score. Happening at last to give birth to a child which mysteriously disappeared, her brother Henry III. sent her to her husband in a quasi-disgrace. Henry of Navarre refused to cohabit with her. The king vainly endeavored to reconcile the couple. With more zeal than tact, he used as an argument with his cousin that the mother of the King of Navarre had not herself led an irreproachable life. At this Henry burst into a laugh, and remarked to the envoy that the king was very complimentary in his letters, his majesty having in the first described the vices of the wife, and in the second alluded to the frailties of the mother.