rt--the
consistory--in each particular congregation, with its popular element in
the _superintendents_ (surveillants) or _elders_, who sat with the
pastors to adjudicate upon the inferior and local concerns of the
members. It provided for the more direct participation of the people in
the control of affairs by making the offices of elder and deacon
elective, and not perpetual. It provided a court of appeal in the
provincial _colloques_ or _synods_, to be held at least twice a year, in
which each church was to be represented by its pastor and elder. Above
all stood the _National Synod_, the ultimate ecclesiastical authority.
The constitution strove to preclude the establishment of a hierarchy, by
declaring all churches and ministers equal, and to secure correctness of
teaching, not only by requiring the ministers to sign the confession,
but by providing for the deposition of those who had lapsed from the
faith.

Thus it was that, in the midst of a monarchy surpassed by none for its
arbitrary and tyrannical administration, and not many hundred paces from
the squares where for a generation the eyes of the public had been
periodically feasted with the sight of human sacrifices offered up in
the name of religion, the founders of the Huguenot church framed the
plan of an ecclesiastical republic, in which the elements of popular
representation and decisive authority in an ultimate tribunal, the
embodiment of the judgment of the entire church, were perhaps more
completely realized than they had ever before been since the times of
the early Christians.[712] The few ministers that had met in an upper
room, at the hazard of their lives, to vindicate the profession of faith
of their persecuted co-religionists, and to sketch the plan of their
churchly edifice, as noiselessly retraced their steps to the
congregations committed to their charge. But they had planted the seed
of a mighty tree which would stand the blasts of many a tempest--always
buffeted by the winds, and bearing the scars of many a conflict with the
elements--but proudly pre-eminent, and firm as the rock around which its
sturdy roots were wound.

[Sidenote: Marriages and festivities of the court.]

Henry had sworn to behold with his own eyes the punishment of Anne du
Bourg. But the grateful sight was not in store for him. From the
Mercuriale and the persecution of heretics he turned his attention to
the celebration of the marriages which were to cement the indissol