So successful were these measures that the French ambassador bitterly jested of the Holy Ghost coming to Trent in the mailbags from Rome.
[Sidenote: Membership] At the first session there were only thirty-four members entitled to vote: four cardinals, four archbishops, twenty-one bishops and five generals of orders.

There were also present other personages, including an ambassador from King Ferdinand, four Spanish secular priests and a number of friars.

The first question debated was the precedence of dogma or reform.

Regarding the council chiefly as an instrument for condemning the heretics, the pope was in favor of taking up dogma first.

The emperor, on the other hand, wishing rather to conciliate the Protestants and if possible to lure them back to the old church, was in favor of starting with reform.