In 1558, Lorenzo, the Venetian ambassador, set down even then the number of the Reformers at four hundred thousand.

In 1559, at the death of Henry II., Claude Haton, a priest and contemporary chronicler on the Catholic side, calculated that they were nearly a quarter of the population of France.
They held at Paris, in May, 1559, their first general synod; and eleven fully established churches sent deputies to it.

This synod drew up a form of faith called the Gallican Confession, and likewise a form of discipline.

"The burgess-class, for a long while so indifferent to the burnings that took place, were astounded at last at the constancy with which the pile was mounted by all those men and all those women who had nothing to do but to recant in order to save their lives.

Some could not persuade themselves that people so determined were not in the right; others were moved with compassion.