Many carried their impudence to such an extent as to interrupt the pastors in full assembly, and to give them the lie. These unworthy excesses exposed them to no more than murmurs and words of reprehension. People dared not chastise them as they deserved. If an assembly, less enduring than others, thrust them into the street and a tumult resulted, the consequence was the interdiction of religious worship, or even the imprisonment of the pastor. Stalls were erected at the crossways; and there these new mountebanks, with piles of great books at their sides, of which they had not read a word, blattered away upon points of controversy, parodied the ministers, and diverted or excited the populace by their vociferations. The most remarkable of these “converters” was one Véron, or Father Véron. He had worn the habit of a Jesuit, and had been presented with the curacy of Charenton, that he might more conveniently importune the Reformed. This Véron frequently attended the sermons of the pastors, and at the end of the service refuted them on a kind of stage he had caused to be erected at the door of his church. He wearied the most learned doctors of the Reformation with his challenges. The celebrated Bochart had on one occasion the complaisance to open a regular disputation with him. But Véron fled before the questions, which he had himself placed upon the table, were examined, and the pastors ended by opposing him with the silence of contempt. All these endeavours after conversions had but little success. Not only studious men, but artisans, women, nay even children of the Reformed communion, made themselves masters of controversial subjects, and easily confounded the self-styled propagators of the faith. So also, after the pacific mission came the armed mission—the _booted_ mission, of which we shall speak in its place. From 1631 to 1645 three national synods were held. The court strove to render them less and less frequent, until it might succeed wholly in suppressing them. The first of these assemblies was opened at Charenton, on the 1st of September, 1631. The commissioner Galland took his seat without opposition. Pastors and laity, all were of a sorrowful heart, and [maintained an] humble attitude: they felt they were at the mercy of their opponents. The king disgraced the general deputies, whose nomination would be agreeable to himself, and the synod obeyed. Later, one single deputy only was required, the formality of whose re-election was even dispensed with. This high office was concentrated in the family of the Marquis de Ruvigny, and the churches vainly sought to join a general deputy from the _Tiers-état_ with him. The liberal spirit of the Reformation did not suit Louis XIV.