So carefully were the preparations made that the King remained armed while the Huguenots were scattered and unarmed,[1261] saving large numbers of individual nobles who yet stood upon their guard. In northern and central France, La Rochelle excepted, the government controlled all the towns. In Provence and Languedoc, however, many of the towns were governed by the Protestants.[1262] In order to prevent the communication of intelligence between the various parts of France under Protestant control, Charles IX even had refused to permit Condé to levy money upon the Huguenots for payment of the reiters, notwithstanding the governments’ own poverty, although the prince cunningly suggested such an action.[1263] The outlook was dark indeed. The Huguenots nowhere save in the south seemed strong enough to take the field, and it seemed hopeless for them to expect to join with their coreligionists of the north owing to the vigilance of Montluc in Languedoc and Tavannes in Burgundy and to the fact that the whole course of the Loire was patrolled by forces of the government. Moreover, the general contribution being stopped, both resources and communication were at an end; the gentry too were impoverished by the late war to a very great extent, having “consumed as much in eight months as they had gathered in four years before,”[1264] so that the wisest of the Huguenot leaders were of the opinion that the religion was not in a state to attempt anything by open arms. While he tried to augment his forces Condé sought to remedy matters by appeal to the King,[1265] complaining of the outrages inflicted on the Huguenots[1266] (Montluc had even hanged seven gentlemen of the entourage of the queen of Navarre, in Languedoc), being careful not to impute these wrongs, however, to the King, but reprobating the malignancy of the cardinal of Lorraine and accusing him of secret intelligence with Spain.[1267] The cardinal, thus assailed, parried through the King, who two days later issued a proclamation, which after reciting the complaints of murder, robberies and other wrongs alleged by those of “the pretended Reformed religion,” declared that the King, having sent his _maîtres des requêtes_ into the provinces where these acts of violence had been perpetrated, was satisfied of the substantial justice of the administration, and asserted that the complaints had either been manufactured by the Huguenot leaders, or else grossly exaggerated. The proclamation closed by commanding all judges and other officers, on pain of deprivation, to search out and punish wrong-doers, so that those of the religion might not have ground for complaining that justice was not done them.[1268]