During the winter there was a complete cessation of hostilities before La Rochelle. Not a cannon was discharged all through the months of December, January, and February.[1554] In derision of the King’s camp, some of the more daring of the Huguenot soldiery strutted about adorned with cards and dice to signify that the King’s troops were better gamesters than soldiers.[1555] The truth is, Protestant France was not all of one mind to continue the resistance. There were two parties in the Huguenot capital, the irreconcilables, who wanted war to the knife and favored looking to England for support; and a more moderate faction led by that Bayard of the Protestants, the heroic La Noue, who, believing that the great enemy of France and of the Huguenots was Spain,[1556] with proper guarantees stood ready to forget and forgive the massacre, so far as it was possible for human memory and feeling to do so, recognizing that that event was a catastrophe to Catholic as well as to Protestant France; that, however monstrous it was as a crime, as a blunder its effects were even more calamitous. As for the crown, it was even more anxious than the moderate Huguenots to avoid a protracted siege and come to some form of settlement.[1557] With this aim Charles IX, through the medium of the duke of Longueville, governor of Picardy, early in October had made overtures to La Noue, who was still in Flanders. After some hesitation La Noue came to Paris where he had a conference with the King and the queen mother. So trusted and so capable was he that Charles IX gave him practically discretionary powers to bring about a settlement, and in the middle of November La Noue went to La Rochelle.