Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

We have already related the meeting of the first
synod of the French Protestant Church at Paris, in
1559. At that synod were laid the foundations of
the Church's polity; her confession of faith was
compiled, and her whole order and organization
were settled. Five national synods had assembled
in the interval, and this at La Rochelle was the
seventh; but neither at this, nor at the five that
preceded it, had any alteration of the least
importance been made in the creed or in the
constitution of the French Church, as agreed on at
its first national synod, in 1559. This assembly, so
illustrious for the learning, the rank, and the
numbers of its members, set the seal of its approval
on what the eleven pastors had done at Paris twelve
years before. There is no synod like this at La
Rochelle, before or since, in the history of the
French Protestant Church. It was a breathing-time,
short, but beyond measure refreshing. "The French
Church," says one, "now sat under the apple-tree;
God spread a table for her in the presence of her
enemies."
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