In the meantime, while Condé was encamped between Sens[1175] and Troyes, the reiters had entered Lorraine to the number of about six thousand.[1176] Their coming thwarted the plans of the duke of Guise, who was on the frontier with the marshal Tavannes, for it prevented the French commanders from joining with Count Mansfeldt and the duke of Lorraine and compelled them to fall back.[1177] The junction of Condé and the reiters was effected on December 28, and a camp established at Dessay. The King’s army of all sorts comprised 30,000 footmen and half as many horse.[1178] Nevertheless, despite the adverse prospect, the government did not waver. The capital was intensely loyal. In response to a call of the King, the Parisians made a general muster of 30,000 and offered 1,200,000 francs for the maintenance of the war.[1179]
Tentative efforts, however, were even yet made to make peace, to the indignation of the Parisians.[1180] The insistence of Charles IX, though, upon an immediate laying-down of arms was an effective obstacle to any cartel that might have been arranged. In reply to the articles sent by the King to the prince of Condé, the latter responded that the Protestants had no intention to prescribe the law to the King, but only humbly to require such things as were necessary for the liberty of their consciences and the preservation of their lives and goods, namely, that the edict of Orleans should be observed without any alterations; that bailiwicks should be appointed for the free exercise of religion; that they should be preserved in the enjoyment of their estates and offices; that those of Lyons should have the same liberty as the rest of the subjects of the realm; that synods should be permitted, and that the Edict of Pacification should be declared irrevocable.[1181]
In his answer Charles IX declared that he would never agree to treat with the prince of Condé or any other subject as with an equal; he promised to pardon what had passed if the Protestants would lay down their arms within three days and retire to their houses and give up the places taken by them; that where certain gentlemen complained of having been prosecuted for exercising their religion in their houses, he was content that this should cease, provided that there were not more than fifty persons present exclusive of their families; that he intended to keep his forces in his hands and to dispose of and govern towns as he pleased; that the town of Lyons, being full of strangers, should not be allowed the exercise of religion; that all enrolment of men, associations, and synods, must cease; and finally, that the King would immediately dispatch his letters-patent to assure the prince and his company of their lives, goods, and the liberty of their consciences, if these conditions were complied with.[1182]
The truth is, the French government prepared for war with great reluctance. Philip II’s anxiety lest the queen would come to terms with her adversaries was a just one.[1183] The King’s expenses amounted to nearly a million livres per month,[1184] and he had “to quiet such storms as daily arose in his camp amongst his nobility, partly for religion and partly for ambition.”[1185] Unless Spain came strongly to the relief of the Catholic cause in France, it was apparent that Condé could go almost wherever he pleased in the country, his force was so great.[1186] Many of the King’s soldiers were ill-minded to fight against their countrymen and many deserted. The Swiss were wearied by travel and the inclemency of the season and there was much disease among them.[1187] The leaders wrangled for the command.[1188] There was mutiny and desertion in the ranks of the Scotch Guard, thirty of whom deserted to the prince, or rather to their old commander Montgomery.[1189] All along the line of the King’s forces there was opposition to the war. The chevalier Battres told Charles IX that many of the nobles were determined to hazard the King’s displeasure rather than to stain their hands in their kinsmen’s blood.[1190] The marshal Cossé showed unwonted courage in his advocacy of moderation[1191]—a policy which he openly admitted and approved in the Council meeting (February 10). The germ of the Politique party is thus early discoverable.[1192]
The duke of Anjou, who had been made commander-in-chief of the Catholic forces,[1193] seeing the Protestant army considerably augmented and that they had crossed the Seine and controlled the passages over the Yonne and the Loire, sent most of his troops back to Paris, and scattered the rest along the banks of the Seine, to guard the road between Troyes and Paris. The Catholic camp in Paris was established in the faubourg St. Marceau, where were lodged all the gendarmerie, both foot and horse, the artillery and the Swiss. But most of the cavalry was quartered in the villages, where the horses could get better grazing, to the detriment of the country round about, for the soldiers amused themselves by pillage, so that the better towns and châteaux were compelled to fortify themselves as though against the enemy.[1194] Strenuous efforts were made to provision Paris against a future siege, and to establish magazines of provisions and ammunition in the towns of the Ile-de-France and Champagne. To this end the government bought up grain in the early spring of 1568, paying 50 livres per muid, or 10 sous, 5 deniers, per bichet.[1195]
As the prince drew nearer to the city, the conduct of Paris became a matter of anxiety. Although bigotedly Catholic, the populace of the capital had no mind to experience another siege in the cause of religion, and the popular rage against the government, especially toward Catherine de Medici, became so intense that she dared not go abroad without being heavily guarded. The popular voice claimed that the queen mother nourished the quarrel and consumed the revenues of the King,[1196] a belief which the Guises cleverly fostered, if they were not the immediate authors of it.[1197]
“The money of the kingdom today is in the hands of a single class,” wrote the Venetian ambassador. “The clergy is ruined. Without counting the property of the church which has been mortgaged or sold with the authorization of the Pope, the church since 1561 has paid out 12,000,000 écus for the King. This would be immaterial, for it is but a seventh of its annual revenue, if the church had not suffered so much from the civil war. The nobles are at their wits’ ends and have not a sou on account of the war. The country folk have been so pillaged by the soldiery, whose license is frightful, that they are reduced to beggary. Only the bourgeoisie and the gens de robe longue still have money. It is difficult for the King to obtain money without force. In addition to these troubles with his subjects the King has lost all his credit with foreign merchants and cannot raise an écu outside the kingdom without giving collateral. But good may come out of this calamitous state, for the King and his subjects have come to such a dead stop that peace may result.”[1198]
Under these circumstances the crown earnestly renewed negotiations for peace. Even astrology was invoked by the superstitious Catherine and the signs of the zodiac were sagely said to point toward peace. For the queen, walking one day in her garden, discoursing of the peace, called unto her Messire Nonio, an Italian famed for his knowledge of astrology, of whom she asked what he found by the stars touching peace; to which he presently answered that the heavens did not promise it, nor was the earth yet ready to receive it; since the effect of the eclipse of the sun was then in its greatest force, and likewise the virtue of the conjunction of Saturn and Mars which was in Aries last year; but the wise man concluded with the oracular statement that the heavens did not constrain the inferior powers but only disposed them.[1199]