It is a significant fact that the war has now lost almost all confessional character and become a factional conflict between the rival houses of Guise and Montmorency. Catholicism and political corruption on the one hand were opposed to administrative reform and religious toleration. After the creation of the Politique party, the Huguenots of state had merged with them. Except in the case of radical Calvinists and bigoted Catholics, religion had become a minor issue with the French unless it were artificially exaggerated.[1681] It was a mortal enmity on either side, and one which there was slight hope of settling. The hostility of the Guises and the Montmorencys was the real seed of the civil war.[1682] It depended upon the individual in almost every case whether his participation one way or the other was motived by convictions as to the public good or by private interests. The number of those who directly or indirectly were attached to the warring houses almost divided the realm between them and the wretched people were badly treated by both parties.[1683] So widespread and deep rooted was this mutual enmity throughout France, that the Venetian ambassador, no mean observer, wondered when it would end, because it was to the interest of each to sustain it. The King was a shuttlecock in this game of political battledore. The ruin of the crown, instead of being feared by them, was regarded as a possible way to give their enmity freer rein. Each party counted not only upon paying its debts, which were enormous, by victory, but in establishing the power of its house more permanently than ever for the future. While the war cost the King and the country _écus par milliers_, it cost them nothing, at least of their own. The weakness of the crown was the strength of the rivals. They fattened on war, for peace deprived them of their authority, their power, and their partisans. Until one or the other faction was crushed, the hostility was certain to endure, and thus the war seemed doomed to last indefinitely. If, as the result of fatigue or a truce, a respite was made, the time was brief, and was terminated as soon as one or the other side had accumulated some substance again. The only remedy for such a state of affairs was to be found in a foreign war, either in Flanders or Italy.[1684]