According to the terms of this Peace the Huguenots were allowed free exercise of their religion in France with the sole exception of the capital. They were not to be excluded from any office of the state, and four of the strongest fortresses of the country, La Rochelle, Montauban, Cognac, and La Charite were to be delivered to them for their protection and as a guarantee of good faith. The whole policy of Charles IX. underwent a complete change. Obsessed with the idea that the Catholic party, led by the Duke of Anjou, was becoming too powerful to be trusted, he turned to Coligny and the Calvinists, broke off the alliance concluded with Spain the previous year, and sought to bring over France to the side of England and of the rebel subjects of Spain in the Netherlands. Coligny was invited to court, where he soon became the most trusted and influential councillor of the king. He endeavoured to embitter the mind of Charles IX. against his mother, against the Duke of Anjou and the family of Guise. No effort was spared by him to bring France into the closest relations with England and the Netherlands against Spain, and as a sign of the reconciliation that had been effected between the court and the Huguenots a marriage was arranged between Henry, the Calvinist King of Navarre and Margaret of Valois, the sister of Charles IX. The Catholics were highly indignant at this sudden change of policy. Mindful of the misfortunes brought upon their country by the Huguenots and of the losses and cruelties they had suffered at the hands of this implacable minority, they resented the domination of Coligny, whom they regarded as their most dangerous enemy, and they were embittered by the thought that the victories they had won at so much cost had resulted only in their own downfall and in the triumph of their worst enemies. Catharine de' Medici, the queen-mother, felt more acutely than the rest the influence of Coligny. She believed that he was using his power to alienate the young king from herself, and to win him from the policy she had advocated. She was only waiting an opportunity to wreak her vengeance on Coligny and the whole Huguenot party, knowing well as she did that she could count upon the popular feeling of the nation to support her.