Viviers

Viviers rises above the Rhône, its cathedral of Saint Vincent crowning a rocky height. The bishops of Viviers governed a city whose merchants traded along the river; the town joined the kingdom of France in 1307. During the Wars of Religion Noël Albert, a wealthy salt merchant who had embraced Protestantism, seized control of Viviers. His troops damaged the cathedral, and many houses of its canons were destroyed in 1567.