Though Jeanne was, perhaps, as fanatical, intolerant, and cruel as her adversaries, she was driven to this by the hostility shown her by the Catholic party—­a party in which she felt she could place no confidence.  Her retreat was amid rocks and inaccessible peaks, whence she defied both the pope and Philip II.  She brought up her son—­the future Henry IV.—­among the children of the people, exercising toward him the severest discipline, and inuring him to the cold of the winter and the heat of the summer; she taught him to be judicious, sincere, and compassionate—­qualities which she possessed to a remarkable degree.  Chaste and pure herself, she considered the court of France a hotbed of voluptuousness and debauchery, and at every opportunity strengthened herself against its possible influence.

The political and religious troubles of Jeanne d’Albret began when Pope Paul IV. invested Philip II. of Spain with the sovereignty of Navarre—­her territory; she resisted, and, following the impulses of her own nature, formally embraced Calvinism, while her weak husband acceded to the commands of the Church, and, applying to the pope for the annulment of his marriage, was prepared, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom, a position he accepted from the pontiff, to deprive his wife of her possessions.  His death before the realization of his project made it possible for Jeanne to retain her sovereignty; alone, an absolute monarch, she declared Calvinism the established religion of Navarre.  After the assassination of Conde she remained the champion of the Huguenots, defying her enemies and scorning the court of France.

So great were her power and influence over the soldiery that Catherine de’ Medici, her bitter enemy, desiring to bring her into her power, or, at least, to conciliate her, planned a marriage between Jeanne’s son and Marguerite of Valois—­sister of Charles IX.  When the suggestion that the marriage should take place came from the king of France, Jeanne d’Albret suspected an ambush; with the determination to supervise personally all arrangements for the nuptials, she set out for the French court.  Venerated by the Protestants, and hated but admired by the Catholics, she had become celebrated throughout Europe for her beauty, intelligence, and strength of mind; thus, her arrival at Paris created a sensation.

She was so scandalized at the luxury and bold debauchery at court that she decided to give up the marriage; she had detected the intrigues and falsity of both the king and Catherine, and had a foreboding of evil.  She wrote to her son Henry: 

“Your betrothed is beautiful, very circumspect and graceful, but brought up in the worst company that ever existed (for I do not see a single one who is not infected by it) ...  I would not for anything have you come here to live; this is why I desire you to marry and withdraw yourself and your wife from this corruption which (bad as I supposed it to be) I find still worse than I thought.  Here, it is not the men who invite the women, but the women who invite the men.  If you were here, you could not escape contamination without a great grace from God.”