The Michelade in Nimes has fed into the historiography concerning the nature of popular violence during the French Wars of Religion. In Natalie Zemon-Davis' thesis, popular Protestant violence was largely directed against profane objects and places, and popular Catholic violence was directed against pollutant heretics. Tulchin argues, that the examples of La Rochelle and Nimes suggest it was more of a numbers game, and that in the rare towns where Protestants held overwhelming numbers, they were just as likely to do mass killings as Catholics. The murders in La Rochelle and Nimes were conducted by officials, and largely targeted priests and high political officials, in contrast to massacres such as that at Sens or on St. Bartholomew's Day which were both more indiscriminate and in the moment.