Montluc had come to Toulouse, fresh from the formation of another and earlier league for the preservation of the Catholic faith, in Agen, which had been organized on February 4, 1563. This league was a direct consequence of the siege of Lectoure and the battle of Vergt. Montluc had received orders to report, with the marshal Termes, to the King in the camp before Orleans. But the Agenois was not quite pacified and the gentry of the country were so filled with alarm, that they concluded, so Montluc naïvely says, “that in case I should resolve to go away to the King, as his Majesty commanded, and offer to leave them without a head, they must be fain to detain me in the nature of a prisoner.”[771] The upshot of things was that the “Confederation and Association of the town and city of Agen and other towns and jurisdictions of Agen” was formed and organized on February 4, 1563, with a captain, lieutenant, sergeants, corporals, and other necessary officers, in order to extirpate the Huguenots from the region. It was an oath-bound covenant.[772] The examples of Agen and Toulouse were contagious, and the popular hatred of the Huguenots, on account of the assassination of the duke of Guise, induced the spread of these local leagues. On March 13, 1563, the Catholic lords of Guyenne also entered into a league at Cadillac on the same plan and for the same object as that of the Catholics of Agen and Languedoc.[773] Like the earlier ones, the league of Guyenne was organized by parishes, districts, sénéschaussées and provinces, under the direction of one supreme chief assisted by a council chosen from the third estate. In the north of France, as has been observed, the tendency of the Catholics to associate was not so strong as in the south. There is evidence of a weak association of the Catholics in the towns of the Rouennais and the lower part of the Ile-de-France in 1563,[774] and of a town league in Anjou and Maine.[775] But no formidable Catholic association was formed north of the Loire, until the appearance of the Confrérie du St. Esprit in 1568, under the marshal Tavannes. The nucleus of many of these Catholic associations, before they expanded into provincial leagues, in most cases seems to have been a local guild or confraternity[776] of some nature. These were closely connected with the body of tradesmen, each trade having its patron saint, its sacred banner, and devoted bands; but some of the more aristocratic people were joined with the artisans. The members had fixed places of meeting and certain days on which to assemble, common exercises, and often a common meal. They swore to use their wealth and their life, if need be, for the defense of their faith.[777]