or until such other time as he might hereafter find to be convenient.[289] [Sidenote: Embarrassment of Catharine.] The feud between the Chatillons and the Guises was not, however, the only embarrassment which the government found itself compelled to meet. Catharine was in equal perplexity with respect to the engagements she had entered into with the Prince of Conde. It was part of the misfortune of this improvident princess that each new intrigue was of such a nature as to require a second intrigue to bolster it up. Yet she was to live long enough to learn by bitter experience that there is a limit to the extent to which plausible but lying words will pass current. At last the spurious coin was to be returned discredited to her own coffers. Catharine had enticed Conde into concluding a peace much less favorable to the Huguenots than his comrades in arms had expected in view of the state of the military operations and the pecuniary necessities of the court, by the promise that he should occupy the same controlling position in the government as his brother, the King of Navarre, held at the time of his death. We have seen that he was so completely hoodwinked that he assured his friends that it was of little consequence how scanty were the concessions made in the edict. He would soon be able, by his personal authority, to secure to "the religion" the largest guarantees. If we may believe Catharine herself, he went so far in his enthusiastic desire for peace as to threaten to desert the Huguenots, if they declined to embrace the opportunity of reconciliation.[290] [Sidenote: The majority of Charles proclaimed.]