Beginning in the 1930s, Marc Boegner served as chairman to early every French Protestant body imaginable, including the Fédération Protestante de France and the recently reunified Église Réformée. He did so in a perfectly democratic manner, albeit with a remarkable appetite and persistence. Boegner understood the needs of an age marked by the desire for authority. This article examines his significant and complex role in the 1940s, his rejection of a ‘believers’ church’, and his support for secret (but unsuccessful) negotiations with Vichy and discreet but successful discussions with Bern.