The war was rekindled all over France. Montluc recommenced his ravages in Guienne and Saintonge, and, after having failed before the walls of La Rochelle, put almost the whole of the Calvinist population of the island of Ré to the sword. An army of seven thousand Huguenots overran Gascony, Quercy, and Languedoc, and traversed the entire kingdom as far as Orleans. It was called _the army of the Viscounts_, because it had for leaders the viscounts Monclar, Bruniquel, Caumont, Rapin, and other gentlemen. The towns of Montauban, Nismes, Castres, Montpellier, Uzès, remained or fell into the power of the Calvinists, who were then in a great majority. At Nismes, from the beginning of the war the Huguenot populace had committed, in spite of the exhortations of the pastors and notables, a frightful massacre of seventy-two prisoners. The following day forty-eight more (Roman) Catholics were slaughtered in the fields. This crime bore the name of _Michelade_, because it took place on the day of Saint Michel, 1567. The prince of Condé commenced his march across Burgundy, Champagne, Beauce, and began the siege of Chartres, one of the granaries of Paris. The affairs of the Huguenots now assumed a favourable turn. The queen-mother, who was accustomed to say she could do more with three sheets of paper and her tongue than the soldiers with their lances, recommenced negotiations. The chiefs of the Calvinists, who had learned to their cost the value of Catherine’s word, wished for guarantees. But the queen had it published in the army that the Edict of Pacification should be re-established without interpretations or reservations, that a full amnesty should be given to all who had had recourse to arms, and that the chiefs alone refused this equitable arrangement from ambitious motives. This trick succeeded. Whole companies of Calvinists, without the leave of their chiefs, took the road to their homes; and the prince of Condé, seeing his entire army thus melting away, signed, on the 20th of March, 1568, the peace of Longjumeau. It was named “_the lame and badly-seated peace_,” because, of the two negotiators of the queen, one was the lord of _Malassise_ and the other was lame. Frenchmen like to be merry upon everything; but truly there was little cause for merriment at that moment. “That peace,” says Mézeray, “left the Huguenots at the mercy of their enemies, with no other surety than the word of an Italian woman.”[49] X. The treaty of Longjumeau lasted but six months, or rather it never existed but on paper. Whilst the Calvinists were sending home their foreign troops, Catherine de Medicis kept hers. She took possession of the strong places, had the bridges and passes guarded, and took every measure to crush the Huguenots.