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 the imprisonment of Gaspard de Coligny after the fall of St Quentin had the same result. About the same time Antoine de Bourbon, the titular King of Navarre, who was the next in succession to King Henry II and his sons, joined the ranks of the Reformers. He was followed by his brother Louis, Prince of Condé.

The most active of these converts was d'Andelot. In April, 1558, he visited his wife's large estates in Britanny together with one of the Paris pastors, Gaspard Carmel, and thus helped to spread Protestantism in that remote and conservative province. But soon after his return to Paris he was arrested by the King's order, and confined at Melun for two months. The immediate cause of his arrest was his alleged presence in the Pre-aux-Clercs, where, for five successive evenings (May 13-17), a large concourse of persons of all ranks had assembled to take part in the singing of Marot's Psalms. The psalm-singing was stopped, but it made a considerable stir, for as many as five or six thousand were said to have taken part in it. The Protestants, it was evident, were increasing rapidly in numbers as well as in importance. Calvin, writing on February 24 in this year, says that he had been told by a good authority that there were 300, 000 Protestants in France.

In the following year, 1559, another important step was taken. On May 26 the first Synod of the French Protestant Church was opened at Paris. We do not know how many deputies were present, but apparently there were representatives of a considerable proportion of the forty to fifty Churches then constituted, though doubtless in some cases the same deputy represented several Churches. There was also a lay element consisting of elders. The pastor of the Paris Church, François Morel, was chosen as president. The outcome of the Synod, which transacted its business in haste and secrecy, was a scheme of Church government or "Discipline," and a Confession of Faith. The "Discipline," which was based on the principle of the equality of the individual Churches, recognised the already prevailing organisation in each Church, namely the pastor and the consistory of elders and deacons. The election to the consistory being by co-optation, the government was practically an oligarchy. It remained to weld together the various Churches into a united whole. This was done by instituting first an assembly called a Colloquy, which bound together a group of neighbouring Churches, then above this a Provincial Synod, and finally, to crown the edifice, a National Synod.

The Confession of Faith was based on one drawn up by Calvin and sent to the King of France towards the close of 1557. Though Calvin was opposed to any Confession being issued by the Synod, in case they should persist in their intention, he sent to them an enlarged form of his former Confession, and this with a few alterations and some additions was adopted. The language of it is singularly clear and noble, and is doubtless Calvin's own.