The principal of these reasons was that they had displeased the Jesuits, especially Primrose. Wherefore he did not obtain, as Cameron did, permission to reside in the kingdom, on renouncing his pastoral charge. One day Father Arnoux, the king’s confessor, preaching before the court, solemnly affirmed that the casuists of his society did not authorize regicide, and Louis XIII. thereupon expressed great pleasure. Primrose, who was there, asked the Jesuit if Jacques Clément had killed _his king_, or even _a king_, by striking a prince _excommunicated by the pope_; moreover, if, in case the Holy See should excommunicate the reigning sovereign, whether the Jesuits would still recognise Louis XIII. as _their king_; finally, if they were disposed to condemn their disciples Jean Châtel and Ravaillac as guilty of the crime of lese-majesty. These questions were embarrassing; Arnoux’s answer was a sentence of banishment. At the national synod of Castres, convoked in 1626, the king’s officer Galland again took his seat, notwithstanding the protestations of the meeting. He was the bearer of an order to nominate six persons, from whom the king would choose the two general deputies. This election had up to this period been made by the political assemblies, and the synod alleged the text of the last edict, which prescribed to it to occupy itself solely with affairs of doctrine and discipline. But the court, without having expressly stated it in the last treaties, did not intend to permit the holding of any more political assemblies, and compelled the synod to exceed its powers, while it restricted it with inflexible rigour upon other questions. Thus the council supported or overturned the letter of the laws according to the object of the moment—the universal and perpetual practice of the strong. The synod of Castres made deep complaints concerning the unhappy condition of the churches. It said to Louis XIII. “that his subjects of the Reformed religion were molested in many parts of the kingdom, obstructed in the exercise of their religion, and deprived of their places of worship; that even their cemeteries had been taken away from them, and the corpses disinterred with the extremest indignity; that their ministers had been cruelly treated, beaten, wounded, and driven out of their churches, although they were quite innocent, wronging neither the public in general, nor any person in particular.”