The essential difficulties in the situation as it obtained at this time are manifest. The Huguenots declared the King to be a captive in the hands of the Guises and themselves claimed to be loyal subjects in rebellion against tyranny.[518] The Guises, on the other hand, branded the Huguenots as rebels and schismatics, although Catherine de Medici still had a lingering hope of restoring peace, and in official utterances carefully refrained from alluding to the prince of Condé as a rebel.[519] Neither side would agree to lay down its arms without the other doing likewise, and neither dared take the initiative in this matter. The situation, therefore, was an irreconcilable one, which nothing but war could settle. The political determinations of the Huguenots were quite as fixed as their religious convictions, for part of their platform was the article agreed upon by the estates at Orleans to the effect that the cardinal of Lorraine, the duke of Guise, the constable, and the marshals Brissac and St. André, should render an account of their stewardship.[520] How far politics governed the situation is evidenced by the fact that late in April the king of Navarre and Montmorency began to weaken in their attitude when it was known that Condé dominated the middle Loire country, Touraine, Maine, Anjou, and much of Normandy; when it was learned that the cities of Lyons,[521] Toulouse, Caen, Rouen,[522] Dieppe, Troyes, Bourges,[523] and the provinces of Dauphiné, Provence, and Poitou, had declared for the Huguenot cause; and when troops were pouring into Orleans by thousands.[524] If the Guises and the marshals Brissac and St. André could have acquitted themselves with so little discredit as Antoine of Bourbon or the constable, it is possible that a compromise might have been made even yet.[525] But such an issue was impossible under the circumstances. The guilt of Vassy still hung over the duke, for he had not yet been absolved either by the Court of Parlement or by the peers of France. Having appealed to force, force remained the only method of settling the great dispute that divided France, and Guise daily assembled horse and foot in Paris in expectation of battle.[526]