The truth is, the French government prepared for war with great reluctance. Philip II’s anxiety lest the queen would come to terms with her adversaries was a just one.[1183] The King’s expenses amounted to nearly a million livres per month,[1184] and he had “to quiet such storms as daily arose in his camp amongst his nobility, partly for religion and partly for ambition.”[1185] Unless Spain came strongly to the relief of the Catholic cause in France, it was apparent that Condé could go almost wherever he pleased in the country, his force was so great.[1186] Many of the King’s soldiers were ill-minded to fight against their countrymen and many deserted. The Swiss were wearied by travel and the inclemency of the season and there was much disease among them.[1187] The leaders wrangled for the command.[1188] There was mutiny and desertion in the ranks of the Scotch Guard, thirty of whom deserted to the prince, or rather to their old commander Montgomery.[1189] All along the line of the King’s forces there was opposition to the war. The chevalier Battres told Charles IX that many of the nobles were determined to hazard the King’s displeasure rather than to stain their hands in their kinsmen’s blood.[1190] The marshal Cossé showed unwonted courage in his advocacy of moderation[1191]—a policy which he openly admitted and approved in the Council meeting (February 10). The germ of the Politique party is thus early discoverable.[1192] The duke of Anjou, who had been made commander-in-chief of the Catholic forces,[1193] seeing the Protestant army considerably augmented and that they had crossed the Seine and controlled the passages over the Yonne and the Loire, sent most of his troops back to Paris, and scattered the rest along the banks of the Seine, to guard the road between Troyes and Paris. The Catholic camp in Paris was established in the faubourg St. Marceau, where were lodged all the gendarmerie, both foot and horse, the artillery and the Swiss. But most of the cavalry was quartered in the villages, where the horses could get better grazing, to the detriment of the country round about, for the soldiers amused themselves by pillage, so that the better towns and châteaux were compelled to fortify themselves as though against the enemy.[1194] Strenuous efforts were made to provision Paris against a future siege, and to establish magazines of provisions and ammunition in the towns of the Ile-de-France and Champagne. To this end the government bought up grain in the early spring of 1568, paying 50 livres per muid, or 10 sous, 5 deniers, per bichet.[1195]