The official synod of 1872 marked the lasting schism that split the French Reformed church, but all efforts towards organization were long in waiting. It was not until late 1879 that the evangelicals held their first, “unofficial” national synod and reinstituted the presbyterian-synodal system in its entirety. The decisive impulse for the reestablishment of the synods came from the Midi, more specifically from the eleventh circonscription (synodical region) of the Provence and Bas-Languedoc, which convened the first, unofficial regional synod of the French evangelical churches, meeting at Montpellier in March 1879. This article investigates these pioneers of the French synodal renaissance.