All the opposite passions of the Calvinist party appeared together in the political assembly, convoked at first at Châtellerault, and opened at Saumur on the 27th of May, 1611. The court authorized its meeting with repugnance and disquietude, and imposed upon it the condition that it should dissolve as soon as it had prepared the list of the six persons, out of whom the king had to choose two general deputies; but it was very evident that the delegates of the Reformation did not come from all points of the kingdom for the sole purpose of inscribing six names upon a bulletin. The assembly of Saumur again numbered seventy members,—thirty gentlemen, twenty pastors, sixteen deputies of the _Tiers-état_, and four delegates of the government of La Rochelle, which formed at that time a separate principality. Fifteen provinces were represented, without counting Béarn, whose deputies were admitted after some little hesitation. The principal noblemen of the party had likewise been summoned by special letters. Among them appeared the Marshal de Lesdiguières, the dukes de Bouillon, de Sully, and de Rohan, and Duplessis-Mornay, who, without being of the same rank, compensated for the inferiority of his titles, by his long services and the authority of his character. The Duke de Bouillon aspired to the presidency, by relying upon the intrigues of the court. He was not elected. Three-fourths of the votes were given for Duplessis-Mornay, and the pastor Chamier was named as vice-president. By this decision the king’s council were plainly told that political passions would not predominate in the assembly, and that its chief object would be the interests of religion, but that upon this article it was resolute not to make any compromise. The session lasted nearly four months, in the midst of laborious negotiations, the court requiring the prompt dissolution of the assembly, and the latter resolving not to separate until it obtained a redress of its list of grievances. The oath of union was renewed, which consisted in swearing obedience and fidelity to the king, “_the sovereign empire of God remaining always in its entirety_.” This reservation, so legitimate and so unimpeachable in itself, nevertheless opened the door to farther contests. At length the assembly separated, after having chosen and seen two general deputies accepted.