Anthony of Bourbon, a descendant of Louis IX, a son of the famous Charles, Constable of France, and husband of Joan d 'Albret, queen of Navarre, who was a daughter of Margaret d'Angouleme, became a Protestant.
[Sidenote: 1555] About the same time the great Admiral Coligny was converted, though it was some years before he openly professed his faith.

His brother, d'Andelot, also adhered to the Calvinists but was later persuaded by the king and by his wife to go back to the Catholic fold.
So strong had the Protestants become that the {206} French government was compelled against its will to tolerate them in fact if not in principle, and to recognize them as a party in the state with a quasi-constitutional position.

The synod held at Paris in May, 1559, was evidence that the first stage in the evolution of French Protestantism was complete.

This assembly drew up a creed called the _Confessio Gallicana_, setting forth in forty articles the purest doctrine of Geneva.

Besides affirming belief in the common articles of Christianity, this confession asserted the dogmas of predestination, justification by faith only, and the distinctive Calvinistic doctrine of the eucharist.