The events of the civil war had profoundly altered Catherine’s views in regard to the two parties which divided the kingdom. At the opening of hostilities, she had believed that the Huguenots possessed the better chance of success, and, though constrained to lend her name to the Catholic leaders, she was careful not to allow herself to be identified too closely with their objects. But, as time went on, it became evident that, although the Huguenots were undoubtedly formidable, they were very inferior in numbers, and that the mass of the people were faithful to the Old Religion. She was compelled, therefore, to recognize that she had been mistaken, and that it would be very inadvisable for her to alienate the Catholic party. On the other hand, it would be easy to seize the direction of that party, for the King of Navarre and François de Guise were dead, the sons of Guise mere boys, the Cardinal de Bourbon absolutely incapable, the Montmorencies divided among themselves, and the Cardinal de Lorraine, deprived of the support of his brother, as humble as he had once been arrogant. She, therefore, decided to place herself and her son at the head of the Catholics and to re-establish unity in the kingdom by the ruin of Protestantism. But she had no intention of resorting to force; “she wished to undermine the ramparts of Calvinism, not to carry them by assault;”[28] to take back little by little, by restrictive interpretations of the Edict of Amboise, the concessions granted the Reformers; to disarm and dissolve their religious and military associations; and to dishearten them by withholding the protection of the Law and assuring impunity to the violence of the Catholics. But, aware that her task would be immensely facilitated if she could begin by depriving them of their protectors in high places, she was determined to leave no means untried to seduce or discredit the Huguenot chiefs, and particularly Condé--the first Prince of the Blood, the link between the noble and democratic sections of the party, the man whom she half-suspected of aspiring to the throne. From the time of the Peace of Amboise, it was easy for Catherine to perceive that Condé, who had just consented to such important modifications of the “Edict of January,” was unlikely henceforth to show himself a very zealous champion of Protestantism, and that a considerable section of the Huguenots was disposed to question the seriousness of his conversion and the sincerity of his devotion to their cause. She knew, too, that if, on the one hand, Condé aspired, as a Prince of the Blood, to play a prominent part in affairs of State, and was ambitious to secure the title of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, he would be, as a man, eager to compensate himself for the ennui of his recent captivity by a round of pleasure and dissipation.