_Avignon_
Some one had told me that he had stayed at Avignon for a night while
motoring down to the Riviera early in March, and had seen the Rhône
under a full moon from the garden of the Popes' Palace, while the
nightingales sang among the trees all around him. This information had
been presented to me amidst the dreary days of clouds and thawing snow
which come with the end of winter in the Swiss Alps, and the contrast
was so entrancing that I had half a mind to make straight for Avignon
first of all, by train. I had seen that beautiful garden, and the grand
view from its terraces, with the Rhône rolling its mighty stream down
below; the fabled bridge of St. Bénézet still throwing a few arches
across it, with its two-storied chapel at the end of them; the forts
and towers of Villeneuve a mile away on the other side; and the distant
mountains closing in the great expanse of fruitful country. It was a
spot to dream of and to long for.
But I think there must have been a mistake about the nightingales; or
at least about the month. It was now the twenty-fourth of March, and,
although the trees were beginning to break into leaf at last, I heard
no nightingales in Provence.
Avignon has a famous inn--the Hôtel de l'Europe--very old, very
picturesque, with its archway and flower-grown court. Indeed, it is so
much in keeping with all the rest that a stay there serves to heighten
the pleasant memories that every visitor must carry away with him of
the fascinating city. But on this journey I was on the lookout for
something more retiring; and by good fortune I found something as good
of its kind as I have ever happened upon.
I walked up the broad Rue de la République, with its gay and busy
shops, _cafés_ and picture palaces, its trams, plane-trees, soldiers
and citizens, and all the life and appearance of a modern street, and
came to the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. On either side of this main
artery lies the old Avignon, and I knew that I only had to turn aside
from it to lose that somewhat disconcerting note of modernity, and
perhaps to find my ideal _auberge_. I found it just off the _place_,
very ordinary outside, and indeed in, but with a host and hostess whose
sole aim seemed to be the welfare of their guests, and with cooking
that would make the fortune of one of those Soho restaurants that the
world occasionally discovers and flocks to for a time. Good wine, too,
and all at a price that makes one wonder how these things are done.
Find it for yourselves, ye travellers who want to save your pockets,
and are content with a clean bed, good fare and a kindly welcome;
commend me to madame, and ask her to give you a dish of _bouillabaisse_.
I went up that evening, past the huge looming mass of the Popes' Palace
and the cathedral to that delightful garden, with its dark foliage,
gleaming sheets of water, statues and balustrades, and looked out over
the Rhône and the dim country beyond. It is one of those places in
which the past of a very old city seems to concentrate its memories.
Whatever one knows of its history comes before one, half real; whatever
is left of the city itself that is part of its history takes on its old
meaning, and whatever is new is forgotten. In this corner of Avignon,
the buildings round the great oblong of the Place du Palais, the
ancient streets just off it, the huge rocks that lift it high in the
air, the ramparts and towers and forts below, the cottages and quays
along the river, the half-ruined bridge--all are of the old storied
Avignon, and only the garden itself is new, though its newness takes
off none of the effect of its surroundings.
The site of this garden was in papal times a barren windswept waste,
with windmills and forts, and a cemetery used when Avignon was
isolated by floods. When the Rue de la République was cut right through
the city, the débris was carted up here and mixed with soil from the
river banks, and this delightful garden laid out. Shortly after the
Crimean war Marshal Canrobert planted an oak among the ilexes and
cedars and cypresses that mix their dark foliage with the living green
of the deciduous trees, and dedicated the garden to the use of the
citizens of Avignon.
It is a charming spot at all times. I found myself continually
wandering up there, in the intervals of more serious sight-seeing, or
in the early morning before sight-seeing began, or in the evening when
it was over. Sight-seeing is really the bane of all beautiful places;
one wants to see everything and is glad one has done so afterwards, but
the way to enjoy a place is to live one's own life in it, for however
short a time, and take the sights as they come. Unfortunately they do
not come quickly enough when one has only a day or two to spare for a
place that is full of them, and the only way is to make a business of
sight-seeing, with whatever intervals of peace one can afford.
I did my duty the next day in spite of the rain that fell
intermittently. In retrospect there are churches; crooked mediæval
streets with little shrines in niches of the walls; broader Renaissance
streets with handsome buildings; the immense ring of rampart, too big
to make any single impression, but effective enough here and there when
one found oneself at the edge of the city; the busy modern boulevards,
which after a time fail to take away from the impression of the whole
as a very ancient and very picturesque city; and the mighty palace
so dominating everything that one is hardly ever able to forget it,
however far one's wanderings take one.
I think St. Agricol was the first church I visited. It is of the
fourteenth century, on a very much older foundation, simple and
pleasing, with a late Renaissance memorial chapel, richly and
gracefully decorated, and containing some beautiful statuary. Avignon
employed many sculptors of note in the days of its wealth and fame, and
their work is to be found here and there, sometimes outside of a church
and sometimes inside. One learns to look out for it, and gains many
a little thrill of pleasure in spotting something true and right and
beautiful, among a good deal that is commonplace. The same may be said
of the paintings of which the churches are full, but both buildings and
pictures are apt to be dark, and without a great deal of trouble it is
difficult to pick out the good from the ordinary. Probably the best
are in the Musée, and some of those are so fine that one is content to
enjoy thoroughly a few, and let the rest go by.
St. Agricol was rather busy on the morning I visited it. In one of
the side chapels a number of small boys were awaiting their turn at
the confessional box. They sat on wooden benches, their bare legs
dangling, and occupied themselves as is usual with small boys on their
best behaviour, not making too much noise and ready to be diverted
by anything in the shape of novelty that came their way. When I came
unexpectedly upon them they showed great interest in me, but the
opportunities for comment that I afforded were immediately displaced
by something much more worthy of attention. The great west doors were
opened and a coffin was carried in and laid in the chancel. There
was a muttered service lasting a very few minutes, and silverheaded
_aspersoirs_ were handed from one to the other of the scant body of
mourners. Then the untidy-looking men with their cloth caps on their
heads lifted up the coffin and almost ran with it down the church, led
by a cocked-hatted functionary whose aim seemed to be to get the whole
business over as quickly as possible. It was the briskest funeral I
have ever seen.
After that, the church rapidly filled up with crowds of children, and
the small boys from the side chapel, relieved of their burdens of sin,
clattered in to join the rest. A handsome, cheerful-looking priest
mounted the pulpit and began to address them and ask them questions.
He very soon had them interested, and the church rang with their eager
answers and not infrequent laughter, as he cleverly led them from one
point to another, and caught and threw back every word that he drew
from them. Just as I was going out of the church a mischievous urchin
poked his head in at another door and shouted something opprobrious,
then ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. The priest was as
ready for this interruption as he had been for the calls of his flock.
He said something too quickly for me to catch, and the whole churchful
of children shouted their applause.
More beautiful than St. Agricol is the church of St. Pierre. Its fine
Gothic front, completed early in the sixteenth century, shows a wealth
of delicate carving, and it fronts a picturesque _place_ which enables
one to get its full effect. The façade is worth examining in detail,
with the luxuriant carving, round the portal, of vines and oak leaves
and acorns and little figures engaged in all sorts of agricultural
pursuits. I did not see the carved sixteenth century doors, which are
protected in the same way as those of the cathedral at Aix, but in
a niche between them is a lifelike eighteenth century statue of the
Virgin and Child--the Mother, tender and matronly, bending forward
and holding up her flowing drapery--which is well worth noting. Very
attractive is the little plane-shaded _Place du Cloître_, approached
under an archway to the north of the church. The old ecclesiastical
buildings have been taken possession of by all and sundry, and are
alive with the signs of modern habitation--clothes fluttering, gay
pot-flowers in windows of old grey stone, children playing under the
trees. But it is a sweet and peaceful spot in the midst of a busy city,
and its cloistered charm still hangs to it.
I visited this church several times during the days I found myself in
Avignon, between journeys. It has the same sort of interest as the
churches one goes in and out of in Italy, though to a less degree than
the finest of them--a sense of perfection in the whole, and a good
deal that is worth looking at in detail. There is a lovely little
Gothic pulpit of white stone, with statues of apostles and saints
under delicately carved canopies; richly carved and gilded woodwork in
the choir, which frames a series of dark but decorative pictures; a
Renaissance altar-piece with a relief of the Last Supper; some really
fine pictures by the best-known artists of Avignon--Nicholas Mignard,
Simon de Châlons, Pierre Parrocel, and others. But the most human and
pathetic possessions of this church are the cardinal's hat and tunic
of St. Pierre de Luxembourg hung up in a glass case in one of the side
chapels.
[Illustration: SIXTEENTH CENTURY DOORS AND VIRGIN AND CHILD OF
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, ST. PIERRE, AVIGNON]
[Illustration: THE PONT BÉNÉZET
_Page 185_]
This infant phenomenon of the Church had won fame in Paris for his
learning and piety at the age of nine. At fourteen, already a bishop,
he was made a cardinal, and summoned to the papal court at Avignon by
Clement VII, in order that his fame might convert the Urbanists to the
Clementine obedience. His reputation spread throughout Christendom,
and was enhanced by the stories of his extraordinary self-disciplines.
The poor child caused himself to be scourged as he was lying on his
deathbed, and gave orders that he was to be buried in the common
cemetery of the poor. His shroud and vestments were torn to shreds, and
even the bier broken into fragments for relics, and countless miracles
were wrought by the touch of his body and afterwards at his grave.
Three thousand of these were attested by the papal commissioners, not
of the common sort, it was explained, such as "recovery from fevers and
such trivial ills, but the blind were given sight, the deaf heard, the
dumb spake, and, what is more, the dead were raised to life."
This boy-bishop was canonized a hundred and fifty years after his
death. Now he is forgotten, and his relics hang there dusty and
neglected. Baedeker does not even mention them, though Joanne does.
There are none of the signs of devotion and remembrance that are
shown to saints of popular memory, no candles or other offerings. The
Church itself seems to have forgotten him. Has the efficacy of his
self-tortured life died out, or is there still virtue in these relics
of his princedom, which is there for any one to whom it may occur to
draw on it?
In the rather dark church of St. Didier is a notable work of art
formerly known as the _Image du Roi René_, for whom it was executed.
It is a relief in marble representing Christ bearing the Cross, with
a figure of the Virgin on her knees in the foreground, and a score or
so of other figures, with an architectural background. Its realism is
striking, and rather painful, but it should not be missed, for it is
one of the earliest sculptures of the Renaissance to be seen in France.
High up on the wall opposite to the chapel in which this relief is half
hidden is a beautiful Gothic pulpit, or tribune, which is also worth
notice. Probably it was not used for preaching from. Mr. Okey in his
admirable historical and descriptive account of Avignon, suggests that
it was built for the exposition of relics.
St. Didier has a fine tower and belfry, which draw the eye when one
looks down upon the roofs of Avignon from the heights above. There are
not many left now of the two or three hundred towers that were there
before the Revolution, and of the sixty churches or chapels there
are only eighteen, not all of which are intact, or used for their
original purpose. But there are many curious "bits" still left in
Avignon, which one continually comes across as one strolls about the
streets--noble fronts of rich mansions, carved porches and doorways,
innumerable ancient streets of smaller houses, which have remained
almost untouched, and here and there a church or a single tower that
has escaped destruction so long that one hopes it will be preserved for
ever.
Avignon, indeed, would be interesting enough if its great lions were
left out; as it is, they dwarf everything else, and perhaps an apology
is needed for dealing with the parish churches before the cathedral and
the Palace of the Popes. But before we give ourselves over to the big
things of Avignon, let us finish with the smaller.
Every one has heard of the Bridge of St. Bénézet, and the old jingle:
_Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse l'on y danse,
Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond.
Les beaux messieurs font Comm' çà,
Et puis encor Comm' çà.
Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond._
It was a stupendous work of its time, which even the Romans seemed
to shirk; indeed, so great that it was necessary to assign it to a
supernatural origin. The story was told by order of Friar Raymond of
the Bridge, and sealed by the Pontifical Rectors.
When Benet was a young child and was watching his mother's sheep, the
voice of Jesus Christ came to him ordering him to build a bridge over
the Rhône, which until then he had never heard of. An angel in the
guise of a pilgrim led him to the place where the bridge was to be
built and telling him to cross the river and show himself to the bishop
and the townspeople of Avignon, vanished from his sight.
The ferryman was a Jew, and scoffed at his prayer to be taken over the
river for the love of God and Our Holy Lady Mary, but Little Benet
gave him the three farthings which were all his worldly wealth, and he
ferried him across.
Little Benet interrupted the bishop's sermon by announcing his mission.
He was led to the provost of the city to be chastised, and announced it
also to him. The provost reviled him but said that if he could carry
away a certain stone which he had in his palace he would believe that
he could build the bridge. The bishop and all the townspeople looked on
while he raised the stone, which thirty men could not have moved, as
easily as if it were a small pebble and carried it away to form the
foundation stone of his bridge.
So, with a gift of money from the repentant provost, and more from the
townsfolk, and with the usual miracles of healing and raising the dead
to life, the bridge was begun, and Little Benet hailed as a true saint.
The pretty story, which is given in full, translated from the
Provençal, in Mr. Okey's book need not be rejected entirely. There
_was_ a Little Benet, as well as a Great, and he was instrumental
in building the bridge. For he was chief of a community of Friars
Hospitallers founded at Maupas, near Avignon, in 1164, "to establish
ferries, build bridges, and give hospitality to travellers along the
rivers of Provence."[14]
One of the most attractive exhibitions of religious feeling in the
Middle Ages, among a good many that are not at all attractive, was this
undertaking of works of necessity by men of piety who believed that
they were doing service to God by doing service to men. "Travellers
were considered as unfortunates deserving pity," says M. Jusserand in
his "English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages," in which there is much
interesting information about the building and preservation of roads
and bridges, "and help was given to them to please God."
Thus, when Henry VIII gave the lands of the dissolved monastery of
Christ Church to Canterbury Cathedral, he declared that he made this
donation "in order that charity to the poor, the reparation of roads
and bridges, and other pious offices of all kinds should multiply and
spread afar." It is probable that the Frères Pontifes, taking their
pattern from the Collegium Pontificum of Rome, owed their Christian
impetus to St. Benet of Avignon, for his is the first society of its
kind that is known, though it was soon copied all over Europe. It took
him eleven years to build the bridge, and he also built the chapel of
St. Nicholas that still stands upon it. He was buried in this chapel,
and his body remained there for five hundred years. But the great
floods of 1669 so shook the structure that his remains were translated
to a chapel at the end of the bridge, thence to the church of the
Célestines, and finally at the Revolution, into the church of St.
Didier.
Is it too fanciful to suppose that there is some foundation in fact
for the legend of his beginning his great work as a child? I like to
imagine him filled with his great idea as he walked by the side of
the Rhône as a boy, talking about it and being laughed at, gradually
forming a strong purpose, and finally bringing it to a triumphant
issue. It reminds me of Dickens, as a poor child, passing the mansion
of Gad's Hill and making up his mind that he would some day live there.
The bridge passed through many vicissitudes. It was much quarrelled
over, and seems to have been kept in fair repair whenever the Church's
rights in it were recognized, but let go when it was in the hands of
the laity. It has been in ruins now for two hundred and fifty years,
but the few arches that remain show how well Little Benet and his
bridge-builders did their work; and as it stands now it is one of the
most picturesque features of the beautiful city.