As finally passed, the law demanded a return to the old religion, but added the proviso that the means taken should be "gentle and pacific and without war." So impossible was this in practice that the government was again obliged to issue a decree granting liberty of conscience and restricted liberty of worship.
[Sidenote: 1577] Under the oppression of the ruinous civil wars the people began to grow more and more restless.

The king was extremely unpopular.

Perhaps the people might have winked even at such outrages against decency as were perpetrated by the king had not their critical faculties been sharpened by the growing misery of their condition.

The wars had bankrupted both them and the government, and the desperate expedients of the latter to raise money only increased the poverty {223} of the masses.

Every estate, every province, was urged to contribute as much as possible, and most of them replied, in humble and loyal tone, but firmly, begging for relief from the ruinous exactions.