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Specialists of the court under the last Valois kings agree that Catherine de Medici’s accession to the regency ushered in a period even more favorable to the ladies active in that environment. Nevertheless, this historiographical consensus rests on a rather limited examination of the real agency exercised by the noblewomen serving in the Queen Mother’s household or close to her. Thus, by analyzing the trajectories of two such ladies, together with a broader perspective on episodes in which women engaged in significant power relations with men at court, this article seeks to measure the actual influence of female representatives of noble lineages gathered at the French Court during the decades 1560–1580. From this inquiry emerges the conclusion that, at Catherine de Medici’s instigation, a professionalization of the ladies at court as negotiators on behalf of royal power began to take root—to the point that even a king in full authority, such as Henry III, made use of it.