The Leaguers had also formed a state within the state, but with this difference, that they were associated together in order to oppress the Calvinists, whilst the latter united that they might not be oppressed; and cruel experience proved to them, under the reign of Louis XIV., that in losing their political organization, they were exposed to the loss of everything. The council of the king heard with astonishment of the decision of the assembly of Sainte Foy. It had imagined that the great Calvinist body, deprived of its ancient protector, would be destroyed. Catherine of Medicis and Charles IX. fell into the same error after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Seeing the Reformed rise up under the strokes of persecution to take a firmer attitude than ever, statesmen began to think that it was necessary to temporize with them. The king feigned to be discontented, but secretly encouraged the political assemblies. He preferred them to a protector, who might have made himself too conspicuous in the kingdom, and he made use of them with the Leaguers, and even with his advisers at Rome, to grant more favourable conditions to his former friends. The Edict of Nantes, one of the most glorious acts of Henry IV., would never have been agreed to in council, nor registered by Parliament, if it had not been for the assemblies of the Reformed. The negotiations were long, laborious, and intermixed with incidents which would offer little or no interest [to be here related]. Political assemblies were held at Saumur, Loudun, and Vendôme, and again at Saumur and Châtellerault in the years 1595, 1596, and 1597. The court addressed them with menaces or words of encouragement, according to circumstances. Commissioners were appointed to treat with the Calvinists; but they only possessed limited powers, and even within these limits they were not authorized to conclude a definitive arrangement. There was a perpetual interchange of communications, much playing at cross-purpose, between the two parties; some were only willing to grant the Edict of Poitiers, with amendments of no importance; others demanded the full and free exercise of their religion; the former alleging state reasons, the latter principles of justice and conscience. In the midst of these sterile disputes, persecution continued to be violent in some places, and vexatious in others. At Châtaigneraie, upon the confines of Poitou and Brittany, the Leaguers, encouraged by the Duc de Mercœur, had fallen suddenly upon the faithful, whilst they were at prayers, in 1595. Two hundred persons, of every age, men and women, had been cowardly butchered. It was a repetition of the massacre at Vassy.