AVIGNON.
How Avignon passed to the Popes--The court of Clement VI.--John
XXII.--Benedict XII.--Their tombs--Petrarch and Laura--The Palace of
the Popes--The Salle Brûlée--Cathedral--Porch--S. Agricole--Church of
S. Pierre--The museum--View from the Rocher des doms--The Rhone--The
bridge--Story of S. Benezet--Dancing on bridges--Villeneuve--Tomb of
Innocent VI.--The Castle at Villeneuve--Defences--Tête-du-pont of the
bridge.
We leave Languedoc and are again in Provence, or what was Provence, till
the Popes by a fraud obtained it. Avignon belonged to Provence, which was
claimed by Charles of Anjou in right of his wife, and it had descended
to his son, Charles II. of Naples. On the death of the latter it fell to
Robert of Naples, and from him to his grand-daughter, Joanna, the heiress
of the Duke of Calabria.
The Papal residence was now at Avignon, and there it remained for a century
and a quarter. Joanna fell into trouble, her kingdom of Naples was invaded
by Louis, King of Hungary, who asserted his right to her throne. She fled
to Provence--to Avignon--where at once Pope Clement VI. seized the occasion
to purchase this portion of her Provençal inheritance of her at the price
of eighty thousand gold crowns. He kept the principality, but never paid
the money.
The Popes have left their indelible mark on the place in the glorious
palace, a vast castle, of the boldest structure, wonderful in its size and
massiveness.
The Papal court at Avignon, under Clement VI., "became", says Dr. Milman,
"the most splendid, perhaps the gayest, in Christendom. The Provençals
might almost think their brilliant and chivalrous counts restored to power
and enjoyment. The Papal palace spread out in extent and magnificence; the
Pope was more than royal in the number and attire of his retainers; the
papal stud of horses commanded general admiration. The life of Clement was
a constant succession of ecclesiastical pomps and gorgeous receptions and
luxurious banquets. Ladies were freely admitted to the Court, and the Pope
mingled with ease in the gallant intercourse. The Countess of Turenne,
if not, as general report averred, actually so, had at least many of the
advantages of the Pope's mistresses--the distribution of preferments and
benefices to any extent, which this woman, as rapacious as she was handsome
and imperious, sold with shameless publicity."
Under the Papal rule, with such an example before it, Avignon became the
moral sink of Christendom. To see what its condition was, and how flagrant
was the vice in all quarters, the letters of Petrarch must be read. He
speaks of the corruption of Avignon with loathing abhorrence; Rome itself,
in comparison, was the seat of matronly virtue.
But I must step back for a moment to John XXII. because of the lovely
monument to him in the cathedral, and because thereon we have his authentic
portrait.
This Pope was a cobbler's son of Cahors; he was a small, deformed, but
clever man: the second cobbler's son who sat on the seat of S. Peter. He
had gone, when a youth, to Naples, where his uncle was settled in a little
shop. There he studied, his talents and luck pushed him into notice, and
he became bishop of Fréjus. But he preferred to live on the sunny shores
of Naples, and to keep within the circle of the king, where lay chances of
higher preferment, and he troubled his diocese little with his presence. He
became a cardinal, and in 1316 was elected Pope at the conclave of Lyons.
He at once dropped down the Rhone, and fixed the seat of his pontificate at
Avignon. Able, learned though he was, he was not above the superstitions
of his age. He had been given a serpentine ring by the Countess of Foix,
and had lost it. He believed that it had been stolen from him wherewith to
work some magic spell against his health. The Pope pledged all his goods,
movable and immovable, for the safe restoration of his ring: he pronounced
anathema against all such as were involved in the retention of it. It was
rumoured that one of those involved in the plot by witchcraft to cause his
death through this serpentine ring was Gerold, bishop of his own native
city, Cahors. The alarmed and angry sovereign Pontiff had the unhappy
bishop degraded, _flayed alive_, and torn to pieces by wild horses.
[Illustration: Papal Throne in the Cathedral of Avignon.]
John XXII. issued an edict of terrible condemnation against all such as
dealt in magical arts, who bottled up spirits, made waxen images and stuck
pins into them, and the like. He died at the age of ninety, having amassed
enormous wealth by drawing into his own power all the collegiate benefices
throughout Christendom, and by means of reservations, an ingenious mode
of getting large pickings out of every bishopric before the institution
of a new bishop. The brother of Villani the historian, a banker, took the
inventory of his goods when he was dead. It amounted to eighteen millions
of gold florins in specie, and seven millions in plate and jewels. His
face, on his monument, is indicative of his harsh, grasping, and cold
character.
Now look at this other face, it is that of the successor of John, of James
Fournier, who took the name of Benedict XII. He lies in the north aisle of
the cathedral.
[Illustration: John XXII.]
On the death of John XII. twenty-four cardinals met, mostly Frenchmen,
and their votes inclined to a brother of the count of Comminges, but they
endeavoured to wring from him an oath to continue to make Avignon the seat
of the Papacy. He refused; and then, to his own surprise, the suffrages
fell on the Cistercian abbot, James Fournier.
"You have chosen an ass!" he said, in humility or in irony.
[Illustration: Benedict XII.]
But he did himself an injustice: he was a man of shrewdness and sagacity,
he lacked only courage and strength to have made a great Pope. His whole
reign was a tacit reproach against the turbulence, implacability and
avarice of his predecessor. The court of Avignon was crowded with fawning
courtier bishops seeking promotion: he sent them flying back to their sees.
He discouraged the Papal reserves, the iniquitous system whereby Pope John
had amassed his wealth; he threw open the treasury of his predecessor, and
distributed some of the coin among the cardinals, the rest he spent in the
erection of the huge castle-palace that is now the wonder of all who visit
Avignon, and the construction of which made the money circulate among the
poor and industrious artificers.
When Benedict died, after a brief reign of eight years, his reputation was
disputed over with singular pertinacity by friends and foes.
[Illustration: An angle of the Papal Palace, Avignon.]
"He was a man wiser in speech than in action, betraying by his keen words
that he saw what was just and right, but dared not follow it. Yet political
courage alone was wanting. He was resolutely superior to the Papal vice of
nepotism. On one only of his family, and that a deserving man, he bestowed
a rich benefice. To the rest he said, 'As James Fournier I knew you well,
as Pope I know you not. I will not put myself in the power of the King of
France by encumbering myself with a host of needy relatives.' He had the
moral fortitude to incur unpopularity with the clergy by persisting in his
slow, cautious, and regular distribution of benefices; with the monks by
his rigid reforms. He hated the monks, and even the Mendicant Orders. He
showed his hatred, as they said, by the few promotions which he bestowed
upon them." [1]
[Footnote 1: Milman: 'Latin Christianity.']
The bitter hatred begotten in return was displayed in the epitaph set up
over him, describing him as a Nero, as death to the laity, a viper to the
clergy, a liar and a drunkard. [1] But malignity of disappointed ambition
and repressed vice did not go so far as to caricature his face. The graver
had to copy the epitaph given him, but the sculptor reproduced the face
of the man himself, and that face, sweet, gentle, and pure, tells its
own tale. It is quite another face from that of John XXII. John has a
magnificent shrine of incomparable Gothic pinnacle-work; but Benedict is
laid in a very humble tomb, yet over it is the best of monuments, his own
good face. Of this "Nero" there is not recorded one single act of cruelty;
and he was guiltless of human blood shed in war.
[Footnote 1: "Ille fuit Nero, laicis mors, vipera clero, Devius a vero,
cuppa repleta mero."]
Here, at Avignon, and writing of the very epoch in which he lived, it is
not possible to withhold the pen from some lines relative to Petrarch, and
I feel the more disposed to write about him, for I think that the words
used relative to him and Laura in Murray's Handbook are not quite just.
Speaking of Vaucluse, the author says: "It is more agreeable to contemplate
Petrarch in these haunts, as the laborious student retired from the world,
than as the mawkish lover sighing for a married mistress."
Petrarch was an exile, living at Avignon in exile, when he saw his Laura in
a church there, and lost his heart. He was then aged twenty-one, and she
was twelve or thirteen; she belonged to the illustrious family of Sade. Now
it so happens that the chief authority for the history of Petrarch is the
Abbé de Sade, who set to work with a determination to show that his family
were lineal descendants of Petrarch's Laura, and he ingenuously left out
such particulars as militated against his doctrine. The great family of
Sade, who had their castle between Avignon and Vaucluse, had not the
smallest intention of suffering a daughter of the house to become allied
to an exile of no great birth and prospects; accordingly every impediment
was put in the way of a meeting. Petrarch's love for her was well known,
indeed his imprudence was great, he allowed his poems in her honour to pass
from hand to hand. It was impossible for her relatives to suffer this to
continue. She was placed with her aunt Stephanette de Romanie; and died
unmarried. Her father was Hugo de Sade, and her mother Laura de Neves; and
the Abbé de Sade, and all who follow him, suppose that Petrarch was in love
with the mother, whereas there is abundant evidence that the object of his
passion was the daughter. [1]
[Footnote 1: The whole matter has been thoroughly discussed, and I think
the story of his love for the wife of Hugo de Sade refuted by Bruce-Whyte
('Hist. des Langues Romanes,' t. iii. c. 38)].
Whether Petrarch's love for Laura was as pure as he represents it in some
of his sonnets--whether the unhappy Laura did not suffer from his pursuit
in honour as she certainly lost in repute, is uncertain. Petrarch in
some of his poems exalts his passion for her into the most pure platonic
affection, but other verses addressed to her have a very different
complexion.
[Illustration: The Cathedral and the Palace of the Popes, Avignon.]
The vast fortress-palace of the Popes at Avignon has stood a siege. It
was at the time of the Great Schism, when three grey-headed claimants to
be representatives of S. Peter and Vicegerents of Christ were thundering
anathemas against each other and the supporters of their rivals. Benedict
XIII. was then Pope in Avignon, but there was a general desire in
Christendom that the scandal should be terminated. All his cardinals except
two deserted Benedict, and the King of France required his renunciation of
the tiara. "Pope I have written myself; Pope I have been acknowledged to
be; Pope I will remain to the end of my days," was his answer. Then he was
besieged in his palace and forced to capitulate, and thrown into prison,
where he lingered under the jealous ward of the cardinals for five years.
[Illustration: Lantern at the Cathedral, Avignon.]
The palace has been restored, and is now a barrack. In it is shown a hall,
the principal dining hall, called now la Salle Brûlée, as in 1441 the Papal
Legate brought together into it the burghers and nobles of Avignon, and in
the height of revelry withdrew himself, and had fire applied to barrels
of gunpowder under it, and blew the guests into the air. This was done in
revenge for the murder of his nephew, a young libertine who had dishonoured
a maiden of good family in the town.
[Illustration: Angel at W. Door, Church of S. Agricole]
Adjoining the palace, on higher ground, the Rocher des doms, is the
cathedral of Nôtre Dame, small and early. With barbarous taste, the fine
Romanesque west tower has been finished off with an octagonal structure
supporting as apex a gigantic figure of the Virgin, leaning against a
lightning conductor that is screwed into her head and back, and looks
much like the apparatus of a photographer to steady her for a successful
_carte_. To the cathedral ascent is made by flights of stone steps, and
it is entered by a porch that is made up of Corinthian pillars taken
from a Classic temple. Some have thought the whole porch to be of Roman
architecture, but it is not so. For some time Provençal architecture was
much influenced by the remains that covered the soil, and from which the
builders of churches not merely drew their ideas but also appropriated
materials.
The dome of the cathedral is noticeable within from the bold and effective
manner in which it is sustained on four successive receding arches. There
is a fine north aisle, the vaulting of which starts as though it were about
to spread into the fan-tracery of English Perpendicular. It is curious
as showing French architects on the eve of reaching the same marvellous
development attained in England.
There is a fine church at Avignon, S. Agricole, of noble proportions, the
vaulting and arcades springing from the pillars without capitals. In the
south aisle is a curious fourteenth-century shrine. The west front of the
church is of very poor design.
[Illustration: A Bit of the Old Wall, Avignon.]
S. Pierre is a flamboyant church, the details passing into Renaissance. In
the north aisle is a superb Renaissance altar-piece, representing Christ
between S. Peter and S. Paul. Underneath is the Last Supper. It was too
fine and good to be appreciated, and a modern vulgar altar and altar-piece
have been erected at the side for use. The choir-stalls are really
wonderful. They are also of Renaissance woodwork, with painted panels
in the back representing architectural scenes alternating with vases of
flowers. They are separated by Corinthian columns gilt, and very sumptuous,
yet the whole effect is subdued and pleasing, not gaudy. In this church
also the arches spring from the pillars without capitals. Altogether this
church deserves careful study.
The museum of Avignon is the richest in antiquities in the south of France.
Unfortunately the substance of the collection was gathered by a M. Calvert
who made no note as to _where_ he got the various articles he collected,
and this naturally deprives much that is there of its value. However, there
is a great deal there to be seen; notably a bronze cavalry standard, Roman,
in admirable preservation; a stamp in bronze with the letters
A I
V N
and the seven-branched-candlestick between, clearly a Jewish stamp. A
magnificent gold necklace and gold bracelets with a large medallion of a
Roman Empress in gold in the midst. The head is said to be that of Orbiana,
third wife of Severus Alexander, unknown to history, and known only by her
coins.
Among the statues preserved there is the Venus Victrix found at Pourrières,
and a very rude but interesting Gaulish warrior, discovered at Montdragon
in 1834, cut in sandstone. He is leaning on a huge shield. There are
several busts of Roman emperors, a good one, but with nose broken, of the
Elder Drusus, Lucius Verus, Tiberius, Trajan, a Plautilla--and some that
are doubtful.
Of the paintings in the _Musé_ I cannot say much, as I looked at two
only--two perfectly delicious Brueghels, a Flemish Fair, and, I think, a
wedding. I won the heart of the _concierge_ by studying them. He found me
careering about the gallery, like an owl in sunlight, looking for Brueghel,
and when he found what I was after, led me back to them, one on each side
of the entrance door. "Why do you want to see Brueghel?" he asked. "Why?
because I love his oddities." "Are you a Belge?" "No." "But you seem
to know the Flemish artists. I am by ancestry a Belge. My grandfather
came from Brussels." So we talked over dear, delightful Belgium for
half-an-hour, and I had the most eager, amiable guide to all that was of
interest in the museum, after that. And it is a collection! The mediæval
and Renaissance sculptures alone deserve a visit.
One can hardly bear to think of the amount of good work that has perished
in Avignon. The city possessed before the Revolution sixty churches, and
of these only eighteen remain; of between two and three hundred towers
and spires, not one-tenth are left standing. There is, however, a very
fine tower and east end in S. Didier, a church of the fourteenth century,
another in the Hôtel de Ville built round with a tasteless Classic
structure that obscures it from view. The Musée Requien is in an old
convent, the chapel of which is given up to the Protestants; it has a rich
flamboyant window to the north, unfortunately blocked.
[Illustration: Part of Church of S. Didier, Avignon.]
A quaint and picturesque tower stands by itself in the Rue Carréterie; it
is machicolated and has a delicate little spire. It is all that remains
of the church of the Augustinians. Nearly opposite is a rich flamboyant
portal.
[Illustration: Bridge and Chapel of S. Benezet.]
Avignon is completely surrounded by its old walls and towers. Much of the
space inside is now occupied by gardens and vineyards; apparently in the
time when Avignon was the seat of the Papacy, it was far more populous
than at present. I should like the clergy of Rome to see Avignon with its
fifty-two desecrated churches and its thirty-five abandoned convents, and
compare it with Rome where nearly everything is left them; then perhaps
they would be inclined to salute their king and queen.
What a lovely view that is from the gardens on the Rocher des Domes! To the
east rises Mont Ventoux, a spur of the Alps thrown out into the plain, and
in April veiled in snow. To the west the chain of the Cevennes, and the
plain gleaming with water from the many windings of the Rhone, and from
its branches, as it splits and circumvents islands clothed with willow and
poplar.
Above Avignon is a very large island, and below it the Durance enters the
Rhone through a lacework of rubble-beds with scanty growths upon them, the
water flickering in a thousand silver threads between. Then, immediately
under the Rocher des Domes is the mighty river sweeping on with strong
purpose, and half-bridged by a quaint old structure, built between 1177
and 1185 under the direction of S. Benezet. On the second pile is a little
chapel, erected in honour of the founder, in which Mass is still said on
his day, April 14th. S. Benezet was a shepherd, he was baptised by the name
of Benedict, but, being a very little man, he received the diminutive that
has adhered to him. He heard of the accidents that happened to those who
crossed the rapid Rhone in boats, and he considered in his mind that it
were well if the prelates and burghers of Avignon would devote their wealth
to making a good bridge, instead of squandering it in show and riotous
living. So he came into the city, and adjured the Pope and the bishop of
the see to construct a bridge. The haughty ecclesiastics scoffed at him,
and, as he would not desist from his urgency, sent him to the city governor
to be chastised. Unshaken by this treatment, the shepherd persisted. He
went among the citizens, he sought out the clergy, he collected knots of
men to listen to him in the market-place, preaching the advantage of a
bridge. It was his one idea. He was ignorant, perhaps foolish, in other
matters, but he was possessed with the belief that God had sent him to
induce the Avignonese to build a bridge. After a while, nothing was talked
of in the place but the great question of this same bridge. Its advantage
was apparent to all. Finally it was decided by acclamation that they must
have a bridge, and when it was built, and the shepherd died, "Really," said
the good people of Avignon, "he must have been a saint to have roused us
out of our apathy."
[Illustration: At Villeneuve.]
The poor shepherd's body was not respected by the revolutionists, though he
was a sans-culotte, but he was a sans-culotte who was a constructor and not
a destroyer, therefore--to the dogs with him.
There was a saying--
"Avenio ventosa
Cum vento fastidiosa,
Sine vento venenosa."
That may be rendered in French--
"Avignon venteuse
Avec vent ennuyeuse,
Sans vent pernicieuse."
Windy it was when I was there, and when I went out on the broken-down
bridge of S. Benezet I was nearly blown off it. This bridge in French
nursery rhyme takes much the same place as does London Bridge in English
children's jingles. We have:--
"London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over my Lady Lee."
And the French have:--
"Sur le Pont d'Avignon tout le monde danse, danse;
Sur le Pont d'Avignon tout le monde danse en rond."
Why dancing should be associated with bridges I cannot tell for certain,
but there is probably some mythologic origin. It was customary in Pagan
times to sacrifice a human being when the foundations of a bridge were
laid, by burying the victim alive under it, and every year an offering of
a life was made to the river to propitiate it, and ensure the stability of
the bridge. Our nursery games of children dancing in a round, and one being
taken by the casting of a kerchief, is a relic of an old heathen _sors_, by
which a victim for immolation was selected; and it is very probable that
the dancing on bridges had something to do with this. One out of the chain
that danced over the bridge, or the ring that wheeled on it was chosen, and
cast over the parapet as an offering to the river.
[Illustration: Castle of S. André, at Villeneuve.]
This superstition lingered on through the Middle Ages, in spite of
Christianity. We say in Devon:--
"The River Dart
Every year demands a heart."
Anciently the Dart was _given_ his victim; now, however, he _takes_ it.
The bridge of S. Benezet is broken down and abandoned, but a suspension
bridge unites Avignon with the farther bank of the Rhone, and this must
be crossed to reach Villeneuve, which stood to Avignon as Beaucaire to
Tarascon. Villeneuve was French, and Avignon Papal down to the Revolution,
when in 1791 it was annexed to France. At Villeneuve the army was assembled
that besieged Pope Benedict XIII. in his palace.
Villeneuve is full of picturesque points. It was originally well fortified,
and was a frontier fortress of Languedoc. The old Hôpital contains the tomb
of Pope Innocent VI., which may be compared with that of John XXII. in the
cathedral. Innocent was a native of Limoges. There was a strange struggle
at his election.
On the death of Clement VI. a conclave of cardinals assembled to consider
about choosing John Borelli, Carthusian superior, but, when Cardinal
Talleyrand warned them that a man of such stern simplicity would in a very
few days order their stately caparisoned horses to be turned to toil at
the plough, they were alarmed, and looked elsewhere. But first of all they
passed a law by unanimous vote that the College of Cardinals should become
a dominant, self-elective assembly, superior to the Pope, and that one-half
of the revenues of the Papacy should be diverted into the pockets of the
cardinals. Then they proceeded to elect, and chose Stephen Aubert, a
distinguished canon lawyer, who assumed the title of Innocent VI., and
his first act was to emancipate himself from the oath he had taken, to
rescind and declare null this statute of the Conclave. He was a severe
disciplinarian. He drove away a great portion of the swarm of bishops and
beneficed clergy, who passed their time in Avignon in luxury and indolence,
on the look-out for rich emoluments. One story is told of his conduct with
regard to preferments. A favourite chaplain presented his nephew, a boy,
and asked for him a rich benefice.
"You are already the holder of seven," said the Pope, "give him one of
those." The chaplain looked discouraged. The Pope compelled him to choose
three of the best. "These must suffice thee and the boy," said Innocent, "I
will give the others to poor and deserving clerks."
It was under Cardinal Albornoz, the martial legate of this Pope, that
Rienzi was subdued, and Rome recovered to the Papal chair.
[Illustration: At Villeneuve.]
The castle of Villeneuve was built by Philip the Bold in the thirteenth
century, and is interesting in many ways. It contains a little chapel of an
earlier date with a small apse and little round-headed windows. The whole
of the body is under a very low-pitched roof supported on an almost Classic
cornice. The fortifications of the castle are an example of a stage of
defence carried beyond what was attained at Aigues Mortes. There, as we
saw, the upper portion of the walls was covered with a balcony of wood on
to which the besieged stepped through the doorways left in the battlements.
[Illustration: A well at Villeneuve.]
When, in sieges, the catapults were made to fling barrels of flaming tar
over these balconies, and set them on fire, recourse was had to structures
of stone, and the wooden _hourdes_, or balconies, disappeared. Then came
the machicolated galleries. But even these were deemed insufficient, and
_échauguettes_ were erected, sentry-boxes between the towers standing
forward beyond the curtains, and with double slits in the floor, through
which two streams of flaming combustible or of stones could be sent down on
the besiegers. The palace of the Popes at Avignon exhibits these on piers
standing forth from the wall. They are also to be seen at Villeneuve.
The fine Gothic church of the Chartreuse is ruinous; in that stood the
tomb of Innocent VI. A grand tower, erected by Philip the Fair, formed the
Tête du Pont of the bridge of S. Benezet. It was erected after the bridge
had been constructed, as a protection against the troops of the Papacy.
Thereupon the popes raised a tower of defence at their end of the bridge.
There were originally seventeen arches in the bridge, resting on eighteen
piers.