ABSTRACT
A civil war in miniature was taking place at the Court of France. The Queen Mother’s continual efforts to put an end to it were vain. The hatred between the two brothers was the first obstacle in the way of that unity which the Queen Mother longed for. With the King’s party against Monsieur’s and Catherine little by little forced into the role, which she found both ridiculous and hateful, of Dowager Queen, it could not have been made clearer both to the foreigner and the factions that the French State, split from top to bottom, was incapable of carrying out the mission of unification on which the public welfare depended. Catherine's aim was to re-establish the unity of the Kingdom of France. The Queen Mother was ceaselessly working to preserve that kingdom intact for Henri III, to give it back to him as it had been under Charles IX, with the exception of the strongholds in Savoy.
