The convention of leading men, upon which Calonne had based such flattering hopes, adjourned without arriving at any satisfactory result. The treasury was empty; and, as the payment of government obligations was consequently suspended, the murmurs of the people became long and loud. Parliament refused to notice the royal edicts, and the army showed open hostility to the court. In the provinces, poverty everywhere prevailed; and the dissatisfaction was steadily increasing. The condition of affairs in Southern France was extremely ominous. At Nimes, the religious factions, which were as bitterly at variance as they had been at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had arrayed themselves in open warfare one against the other. Avignon, eager to shake off the pontifical yoke and annex itself to France, was the scene of daily outbreaks. As the Chateau de Chamondrin was situated between these two cities, its inmates could not fail to be aware of these dissensions. Conventions were held in most of the large towns, and the situation of the country was discussed with much heat and bitterness. The nobility and clergy, who trembled for their threatened privileges, and the people, who had suffered so long and so uncomplainingly, took part in these discussions; and their utterances betrayed great intolerance on the one side and excessive irritation on the other. The discontent had reached a class which, up to that date, had been allowed no voice in the management of affairs; but now, the peasants, oppressed by taxes as exorbitant as they were unjust, began to cast angry and envious glances at the nobility. The hovel was menacing the castle; and France seemed to be on the watch for some great event. In the midst of this general perturbation, the king, anxious and undecided, was running from one adviser to another, listening to all kinds of counsel, consenting to all sorts of intrigues and making a thousand resolutions without possessing the requisite firmness to carry any good one into execution. The Marquis de Chamondrin was a witness to some of these facts. The letters of his son revealed others. He was extremely anxious in regard to the future, and more than once Dolores and his wife saw his brow overcast and his eyes gloomy.