Vence being a devout town and one prominent in all ecclesiastical affairs it is no matter of surprise that it became deeply disturbed by the “new religion” as taught and stoutly maintained by the Huguenots. It is further no matter of surprise that the dissenters made this stronghold of the Church a special object of attack and that Vence became a conspicuous scene of their protestings. The position assumed some gravity when the Huguenots did more than protest against forms of worship and took to arming themselves with weapons of war. They went further. They became clamorous and threatening and made it clear that they were no longer to be put off by mere academic arguments or quotations from the Fathers. Moreover this conflict between the Protestant and the Catholic involved certain political issues which were outside the burning questions of creed; and thus it was that men were drawn into the quarrel to whom matters of State were more important than matters of doctrine. The trouble came to a head in 1560. The bishop at the time was a Grimaldi, while the castle of Villeneuve was possessed by his uncle, a Lascaris. On the Catholic side, therefore, Vence was solid and prepared to take prompt action to crush the revolt. A body of some three hundred men was raised to deal with the Huguenots, but, in spite of the all-pervading power of the Church there were Huguenots in Vence and the vicinity and they, in turn, raised men to support their cause. A Huguenot gentleman, with the pleasant name of René de Cypières, also collected a squadron of forty horse to help those who espoused the reformed faith. Vence thus became in this fair area of France the Defender of the Faith. The governor of the town issued an order forbidding the citizens to harbour or conceal a Huguenot in any house, garden or vineyard. The bishop denounced the Protestants as “vagabonds and seditious men.” What terms the Huguenots, on the other hand, applied to the bishop are not known, but they were certainly not lacking in invective for the contest was bitter. Life in the cathedral town must have been very unpleasant about this period. So keen was the dispute that everyone must, of necessity, have taken sides. Friends broke from one another after an intimacy of a lifetime; lovers parted; the Catholic wife left the husband who had turned Huguenot; while families who were united by ties that had endured for generations now found themselves scowling at one another from opposite camps. Children were forbidden to speak to old playmates, and the little girl who had been so sweet to her boy friend now put out her tongue at him when they passed in the street. In 1562 there seems to have been a lull in this unhappy quarrel and even a sign of tolerance, if not of peace; for the Huguenots, although forbidden the righteous city of Vence, were allowed to hold meetings without its walls.