The failure to have any children during the first ten years of marriage made her position not only unpleasant but precarious, but the birth of her first son made her unassailable.

In rapid succession she bore ten children, seven of whom survived childhood.
Though she had little influence on affairs of state during her husband's reign, she acquired self-confidence and at last began to talk and act as queen.
[Sidenote: Diana of Poitiers] At the age of seventeen Henry fell in love with a woman of thirty-six, Diana de Poitiers, to whom his devotion never wavered until his death, when she was sixty.

Notwithstanding her absolute ascendancy over her lover she meddled little with affairs of state.
[Sidenote: Admiral Coligny, 1519-72] The direction of French policy at this time fell largely into the hands of two powerful families.

The first was that of Coligny.

Of three brothers the ablest was Gaspard, Admiral of France, a firm friend of Henry's as well as a statesman and warrior.