The Huguenot Bartholomew Dupuy and his descendants

HUGUENOT STRUGGLES. 69
question of the construction and consequent introd.
administration of the Edict of Nantes was 1612.
debated with violence and protracted through
four months. The one party, (courting favor
with the Queen Regent), contended that the
Edict should be administered strictly as it
was recorded; the other, that it should be con-
strued and administered according
to the
declared will and permission of Henry IV.,
who granted it. The Queen Regent, who felt
the power of the Huguenots when they were Edict to
united, took advantage of this division, and j^^^^^^^^^j
sent an edict to their National Synod, April synod.
24, 1612, granting pardon for provincial political
assemblies held without permission, and
forbidding all kinds of political meetings, except
those granted by royal permission for an
expressed purpose, under penalty of punishment
as disturbers of the public peace; and
also forbidding them to admit into their
National Synods any persons except ministers
and elders to treat of their doctrines and
discipline, under penalty of losing the privilege
of convening the body, and holding the
Presidents of the Synod to answer for any
violation thereof. By this edict the members
of the Sjmod at once saw that, as the court by
intrigue had brought a division among the
Huguenots in their National Political Assembly,
its aim now was to alienate the
National Synod and the National Assembly.
The Synod, profoundly distressed by the fore-
bodings of evil to come from the political
dissensions among the Huguenots, drew up an
act of union, in which it said: "All persons
are exhorted to labor that the memory of past
matters be buried in oblivion; that so the
several humours and different opinions, risen