The affair of Meaux came like a thunder-clap to most of France. The suddenness of the Huguenot action and the all but complete success of it astonished men. “This movement,” wrote the Venetian ambassador, “of which several thousand men had knowledge, was conducted with such precaution that nothing leaked out until it was all but an accomplished fact. This could not possibly have been done without the perfect intelligence that exists among the Huguenots, and is a striking manifestation of their organization throughout the realm.”[1107] In the light of this judgment, it remains to describe the Huguenot form of government. The ecclesiastical—and political unit—of French Calvinism was the congregation. Congregations were grouped “according to number and convenience” into colloquies or classes which met from two to four times each year, the division being made by the authority of the provincial synod.[1108] In church matters, no church had any primacy or jurisdiction over another, nor one province over another.[1109] Ministers brought with them to local classes or provincial synods one or two elders chosen out of their consistories.[1110] Elders who were deputies of churches had an equal power of voting with the pastors.[1111] The authority of a provincial synod was subordinate to that of the national synod,[1112] and whatever had been decreed by provincial synods for the government of the churches in their province had to be brought before the national synod.[1113] The grand lines of division followed the historic provincial divisions of France, but smaller provinces and parts of the larger ones, as Guyenne and Languedoc, were associated together. The national synod of 1559 divided France into sixteen Protestant provinces, as follows: (1) The Ile-de-France, Chartrain, Picardy, Champagne and Brie; (2) Normandy; (3) Brittany; (4) Orleans, Blesois, Dunois, Nivernais, Berry, Bourbonnais, and La Marche; (5) Touraine, Anjou, Loudunois, Maine, Vendôme, and Perche; (6) Upper and Lower Poitou; (7) Saintonge, Aunis, La Rochelle, and Angoumois; (8) Lower Guyenne, Périgord, Gascony, and Limousin; (9) Upper and Lower Vivarais, together with Velay, and Le Forêt; (10) Lower Languedoc, including Nîmes, Montpellier, and Beziers; (11) Upper Languedoc, Upper Guyenne, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Quercy, Rouergue, Armagnac, and Upper Auvergne; (12) Burgundy, Lyonnais, Beaujolais, Bresse, Lower Auvergne, and Gex; (13) Provence; (14) Dauphiné and Orange; (15) Béarn; (16) the Cevennes and Gévaudan.[1114]