Louis XIV. did not grant that permission, and from the 10th of January, 1660, when the synod of Loudun terminated its session, the presbyterian organization of the French Reformation continued headless. Forcible state reasons had arisen for suppressing political assemblies; none but the most frivolous pretexts could be alleged for prohibiting the convocation of the national synods. But with the maxims of intolerance, the ruin of the former was certain to require the destruction of the latter. Royalty had broken up the Huguenot party, and the priesthood now made it crush the religious community. The first national synod was held in 1559; the nineteenth and last met a century afterwards. If the Reformers suffered in 1559, they had the hope of conquering the kingdom. In 1659, they still suffered, but they had no longer any hopes of this kind. Descartes had appeared, and the field of the struggle against (Roman) Catholicism, at least in France, had begun to change. X. Whilst the French Reformation was a prey to so many harassing troubles, it gained honour before Europe and with posterity, by the learning of its doctors. This was the great epoch of its theology. Germany, so justly proud of its immense labours in this branch of human knowledge, still cites these theologians of the seventeenth century with respect. The majority possessed, indeed, that solidity of judgment, together with a profound and vast erudition, that clearness of view, that skilful connection of proofs, in short, that precision of style, which distinguish the good French writers in every class of literature. We shall only here name the most eminent of the doctors or pastors of the Reformed churches. The history of their ideas and their writings does not belong to our subject. The academy of Montauban was at this time celebrated for the orthodoxy of its doctrines, and the reputation of its professors. Among them, may be mentioned Daniel Chamier, Michel Bérault, and Antoine Garissoles. Chamier had a genius for statesmanship, as well as for the theological sciences. He had a great share in framing the Edict of Nantes. The courtiers, who did not like him, because he was proof against their seductions, ranked him among the “_fools of the synod_.” He held at Nismes, in 1600, a famous discussion with Father Cotton, the confessor of Henry IV. Nothing could be more opposite than the two antagonists. The one, a rigid dialectician, went from syllogism to syllogism, straight to the mark; the other abounded in rhetorical figures and brilliant digressions. The Jesuit had the advantage of dazzling his auditors, but the Reformed theologian had the gift of convincing them, and victory remained with him.