As a result of the reformation of John Calvin in Geneva, the Vivarais Ardèche was one of the areas which strongly embraced Protestantism partly as a result of the missionary activity of 1534 by Jacques Valery. During the following Wars of Religion (1562–1598), the Ardèche was considered a strategically important location between Protestant Geneva, Lyon and Catholic Languedoc. The region had prospered with the introduction of tobacco growing from America, and the agrarian experiments of Olivier de Serres, father of modern French agriculture. The influence of Protestant Lyon, and the growth of the silk industry, thanks to the planting of mulberry trees, had given the burghers of the Vivarais towns a certain independence of thinking, and with the support of powerful Protestant Huguenots, (the Comte de Crussol and Olivier de Serres), the Vivarais became a Protestant stronghold. As a result, it suffered many attacks and eight pitched battles between 1562 and 1595. In 1598, the Edict of Nantes put an end to these struggles. At that time, the Vivarais had over 75 Protestant churches and five fortified strongholds with permanent garrisons. However, the problems of the area were not over. In 1629, Paule de Chambaud, daughter of the Huguenot lord of Privas, chose instead to marry a Catholic, the Vicomte de l'Estrange, who supported the persecution of Protestants by Cardinal Richelieu. Privas, with a majority of the population Protestant, refused to submit, and as a centre of the revolt of the Benjamin de Rohan, duc de Soubise, was burned to the ground by the forces of Louis XIII, sent to support the Vicomte de l'Estrange. As a result, one-fifth of the Protestant population of the Vivarais emigrated.
