The reactionary policy of the government stimulated the local Catholic leagues in Languedoc during this winter of 1564-65.[899] The religious prejudice which these associations manifested was influenced by the bitter jealousy existing between the Guises and the Montmorencys. From the hour of the clash between the cardinal and the marshal, the Guises plotted to compass the ruin of the house of Montmorency, and sought to find support in the Catholic leagues of the southern provinces. The tolerant policy of the marshal Montmorency and his brother Damville was seized upon by the Guises to make them odious.[900] The secular clergy and still more the Jesuits and Capuchins were very active in this work, going from town to town and village to village, urging Catholics vigorously to defend their faith, and their fiery preaching materially advanced the tendency to union among the provincial leagues.[901] Under the effective leadership of the sieur de Candalle, the league of Agen had had an astonishing spread over Guyenne, exhibiting a strength of organization and an audacity which foreshadows that of the Holy League of 1576, in whose genesis, indeed, it represents an evolutionary stage. What made the league of Guyenne so peculiarly formidable, however, was not so much its perfection of organization and its wide expansion, as the fact that it was organized and had existence without the knowledge or consent of the crown, and in transgression of the royal authority, which forbade such associations. This highly developed stage of existence was arrived at by the league of Agen in August, 1564, from which date it may properly be called the league of Guyenne.[902]