Provincial reaction
In total across France, roughly half of the 50 largest cities defected to the ligue in the wake of the assassinations at Blois. Mayenne would be intimately involved in many of their rebellions.
Rouen experienced its own Day of the Barricades in February 1589, when a ligueur regime succeeded in a coup to take the key city. Carrouges, governor of Rouen, initially tried to maintain his place in the city hierarchy following the coup, claiming a conversion to the ligueur cause. Few were convinced by this eleventh hour change, and Mayenne himself visited Rouen on 4 March, to install a ligueur provincial council, with the more reliable Villars, Meilleraye and his brother Pierrecourt at its head. Mayenne was far more pleased with this regime, having induced it with an aristocratic character through the appointment of friendly elite ligueurs. It contrasted with the Seize regime in Paris, which Mayenne viewed with distaste. He had been greeted on his entry to the city by ligueurs keen to demonstrate their piety, the population filing through the streets for hours in a barefoot procession. Before departing, Mayenne rewarded the city with a series of letters patent in which he reduced their taxes and ordered many offices to be suppressed on the death of their incumbent. Despite this the need to reward his allies would mean that he would attempt to keep the offices active by assigning them to new men, though he was opposed in this by the Rouen Parlement.
In Spring 1590, Mayenne appointed Tavannes, a protégé from Bourgogne, and a noble of he felt, appropriately august lineage, as the head of the provincial council. Tavannes proved a poor choice, quickly alienating the elite of Rouen, and he in turn was ousted from leadership in 1591 by the opportunist governor of Le Havre, Villars. When Mayenne visited Rouen in 1591, Villars camped outside the city with an army, and threatened to defect to the royalist side unless Tavannes was removed as ligueur governor of Normandie. Mayenne acceded, and appointed his own son governor, with Villars to act with the full powers of governor until the boy was of age. He further made Villars the ligueur Admiral of France.
Toulouse was overtaken by a ligueur coup in early 1589 also, under the overall authority of the bishop Comminges. Comminges' leadership of the important city was challenged by Mayenne's appointee as military leader of Languedoc Joyeuse, entering the city on 30 September, he secured it for Mayenne's moderate faction of the ligue after a brief power struggle.
In Troyes, Mayenne arrived with his troops on 24 January, all officials were expected to swear an oath to the ligue in his presence, any who refused were expelled from the city. Mayenne established the second son of the late duke Chevreuse, who was only 11 years old, as governor, forming a governors council in the city for him. After seven weeks of this arrangement, the council was superseded in name as a 'new' ligue council. This council would form one of the twelve provincial councils that the ligue operated. Such councils had authority over both financial and military matters, as well as more minute financial decisions, as to determine the appropriateness of ransoms for captured nobles. In theory these provincial councils were to enact orders received from the main Grand Conseil in Paris, and thus Mayenne, but they often had an independent streak. During December 1592, Mayenne wrote to the ligueur administration of Troyes, warning them about the rumours of Henri's plans to convert to Catholicism, reminding them that he would still be excommunicated and thus unworthy to rule France, as such not invalidating their rebellion. Officials in the town were warned that if they accepted his conversion, they would be placed under house arrest.
Mayenne, in his capacity as lieutenant-general of the kingdom, appointed the young duke of Guise to the position his father had occupied, governor of Champagne. He followed this up with the appointment of the baron de Rosne and Saint-Paul in overall authority as lieutenant-general of Champagne, giving them the effective powers of governor due to the imprisonment of the young duke of Guise. De Rosne had previously served the late duke of Guise as his governor of Châlons-sur-Marne, while Saint-Paul had been made lieutenant-general of Reims by Guise to counter Dinteville's influence during the 1580s. Dinteville was the lieutenant-general of the kingdom according to the king. In 1593 Mayenne elevated Saint-Paul to the rank of Marshal as he became increasingly ambitious in Champagne.
In his governate of Bourgogne, Mayenne was in a strong position at the death of Guise. His client Jacques La Verne was the mayor of Dijon and he had further clients among the Parlementaires. He appointed the sieur de Fervaques as lieutenant-general of the province for the ligue to replace the royally appointed comte de Charny. He had first nominated Fervaques back in October, for the confirmation of Henri, however that process was now done away with. Yet La Verne was not quick to seize Dijon for the ligue in the wake of news reaching the city and only when Mayenne himself arrived on 5 January was Dijon secured for the Sainte Union. On 16 January he assembled the city council, and quoted scripture to prove that they owed obedience to the church before they owed anything to Henri. Before departing Mayenne oversaw the taking of an oath, and made the city grandees promise to obey La Verne and not allow troops within their walls without his permission. La Verne was more independent than Mayenne had hoped, and engaged in a power struggle with Fervaques over which of them would control the Château of the city. In April 1589 La Verne imprisoned Fervaques for refusing to swear the ligueur oath. Mayenne was increasingly frustrated by his client, and turned to several Parlementaires, supporting them in the mayoral elections of 1590 and 1591 against La Verne, but they were unable to overcome his 99% vote margins. In 1592 Mayenne succeeded in getting his candidate elected, La Verne never having been secure in his dictatorial control of the Dijon council. Though the following year La Verne would triumph again, Mayenne would be rid of his former client in 1594, disposing of him permanently after La Verne attempted to hand the Château over to Henri, having him executed.
Mayenne's efforts in Dijon were part of a large picture in Bourgogne, of his attempts to influence mayoral elections in the favour of his political interests. He wrote to Fervaques from Paris about his plans for the province, promising to send more troops so that Bourgogne could be 'cleansed of vermin', by which he meant any enemies of the ligue. In April he replaced Fervaques, who had proved more royalist than anticipated with the baron de Sennecey a long time client of the Lorraines.
The ligue movement in Provence was headed by the comte de Carcès who aligned himself with Mayenne through a marriage to his daughter in law. Mayenne's candidate for leadership of the ligue in Provence was opposed by Hubert de Vins and his sister Chrétienne d'Aguerre, comtesse de Sault. After the death of her brother in November 1589 she took charge of their faction, and invited the duke of Savoie into Aix. He entered in November 1590, bringing about the triumph of the faction of Sault over the faction preferred by Mayenne, that of Carcès.
In total there were 12 provincial ligueur councils across France, Agen, Amiens, Bourges, Dijon, Le Mans, Lyon, Nantes, Poitiers, Riom, Rouen, Toulouse and Troyes. Mayenne would have preferred to govern without them and where possible he shaped them towards his aristocratic vision of the ligue.
