As King Henri IV's (1553–1610) royalist armies engaged Catholic League forces across France during the 1590s, a noblewoman insisted that she maintained direct control of her artillery. Louise d’Ognies, madame de Picquigny, assured Catherine de Cleves, duchesse de Guise, that ‘if I wanted to loan my cannons to the military governors of this region, I would have had my money long ago. But, I chose to do my duty in obeying your commands rather than preferring my particular friends’ desires against your wishes, which have always served me as law’. The Guise family and their allies were leading Catholic League forces against a king they regarded as an abominable heretic. In the chaos of religious warfare, Madame de Picquigny presents herself as a loyal noblewoman who demonstrates her service by conserving the artillery pieces under her control.

Sixteenth-century French noblewomen defended their own chateaux, but they also delivered arms to military contingents and field armies operating in their provinces. Noblewomen and urban elite women with hotels particuliers (urban palaces) protected their family residences, but also assisted in organizing civic defence and providing logistical aid to nearby armies. Elite women's conventional peacetime roles as household managers expanded greatly during the long and bitter conflicts of the religious wars to include managing household arsenals and military supplies.