Thanks to her own enterprise in pushing the war which had culminated with so much honor to France, and partly also to her skilful handling of the factions at court, Catherine de Medici was now in enjoyment of supreme power. The entire weight of the government rested on her shoulders, there being no longer any other person who controlled public affairs. The Guises and Châtillon factions were full of animosity toward one another, for Madame de Guise refused to recognize the admiral’s acquittal for the murder of her husband;[733] Montmorency was deeply offended because the young duke of Guise received the grand-mastership and the gift of the duchy of Châtellerault, and so feigned to have the gout in order to avoid service before Havre; Condé was doubly angry at the queen, both because she withheld the promised lieutenant’s commission and because the daughter of Marshal St. André, who left a great fortune, was not permitted to marry his son. The parties were, therefore, in a triangular relation toward one another and Catherine’s art was bent upon maintaining the balance in order to hold her own.[734] The population of the wittiest city in Europe was quick to perceive the animosities and paradoxes that existed. “The Parisians have three things to wonder at,” the saying went, “the constable’s beads, the chancellor’s mass, and the cardinal Châtillon’s red cap. One is ever mumbling over his beads and his head is ever occupied with other affairs; the other hears mass daily and is the chief Huguenot in France; the third wears a cardinal’s cap and defies the Pope.”[735] The queen mother had hoped that religious animosities would be forgotten in the course of the war with England. But she was disappointed. The peace of Amboise could not be enforced. Even in Paris armed troops and armed guards had to patrol the streets to prevent outbreaks of violence.[736] It was impossible to disarm the Catholics, who made house-to-house searches to ferret out Huguenots.[737] Under the terms of pacification the Protestants were permitted to return to Paris, but who dared avail himself of so precarious a liberty? Instead, they were compelled to sacrifice their property.[738] In the provinces the same condition of things prevailed—in Languedoc, in the Orléannais, in the Lyonnais.[739] In Languedoc the association of the Huguenots maintained its organization, raised money, levied troops.[740] Yet in spite of its failure to enforce pacification, the government required the demolition of the walls of towns known to be Huguenot strongholds, as Orleans, Montauban, and St. Lô, a procedure which the Protestants strongly resisted; so that a condition of petty civil war existed throughout much of France, the Edict of Amboise notwithstanding.[741] Summarized, the troubles of France at this time may be said to have been the feud between the house of Guise and that of Châtillon—a feud which compromised the crown and most of the other great families of