As the prince drew nearer to the city, the conduct of Paris became a matter of anxiety. Although bigotedly Catholic, the populace of the capital had no mind to experience another siege in the cause of religion, and the popular rage against the government, especially toward Catherine de Medici, became so intense that she dared not go abroad without being heavily guarded. The popular voice claimed that the queen mother nourished the quarrel and consumed the revenues of the King,[1196] a belief which the Guises cleverly fostered, if they were not the immediate authors of it.[1197] “The money of the kingdom today is in the hands of a single class,” wrote the Venetian ambassador. “The clergy is ruined. Without counting the property of the church which has been mortgaged or sold with the authorization of the Pope, the church since 1561 has paid out 12,000,000 écus for the King. This would be immaterial, for it is but a seventh of its annual revenue, if the church had not suffered so much from the civil war. The nobles are at their wits’ ends and have not a sou on account of the war. The country folk have been so pillaged by the soldiery, whose license is frightful, that they are reduced to beggary. Only the bourgeoisie and the _gens de robe longue_ still have money. It is difficult for the King to obtain money without force. In addition to these troubles with his subjects the King has lost all his credit with foreign merchants and cannot raise an écu outside the kingdom without giving collateral. But good may come out of this calamitous state, for the King and his subjects have come to such a dead stop that peace may result.”[1198] Under these circumstances the crown earnestly renewed negotiations for peace. Even astrology was invoked by the superstitious Catherine and the signs of the zodiac were sagely said to point toward peace. For the queen, walking one day in her garden, discoursing of the peace, called unto her Messire Nonio, an Italian famed for his knowledge of astrology, of whom she asked what he found by the stars touching peace; to which he presently answered that the heavens did not promise it, nor was the earth yet ready to receive it; since the effect of the eclipse of the sun was then in its greatest force, and likewise the virtue of the conjunction of Saturn and Mars which was in Aries last year; but the wise man concluded with the oracular statement that the heavens did not _constrain_ the inferior powers but only _disposed_ them.[1199]