The Royalist faction in Avignon had always been associated with the Order of the “White Penitents,” and in the same way the “Black Penitents” had inherited the independence and rebellious spirit that animated the followers of Count Raymond of Toulouse. These rival factions, whose original opposition had been mainly religious, had now become political, and on the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo their differences became more accentuated and violent. The Royalists were in the ascendancy, and they revenged themselves upon their political and religious enemies with all the fanatical fervour of their Southern nature.
The aristocratic and religious party had much to remember. The Glacière massacres of 1791 were perpetrated upon their class, and as in 1795 the Royalist libertines in Paris had indulged in ghastly reprisals against the red-capped revolutionaries, the White Penitents followed in Avignon the fashion set them by the capital. The enforced submission to the restored Bourbon Dynasty in July 1815 aroused the bitterest resentment of the Black Penitents and their followers, just as the restoration of Napoleon had done their opponents earlier in March of the same year.
At Carpentras, about fifteen miles from Avignon, a small garrison of the republicans, who had kept the tricolour floating until July 15, were shot down by the Royalist Volunteers, although they had surrendered. Fanatical crowds of Royalists directed their hatred and anger against the Protestant section of the community.
Vindictive murder and pillage spread all over the country towns and villages. “The White Terror” of 1815 is a thing to remember, or rather to forget. The diabolical outrages of Jourdain were equalled, if not surpassed, by the White Penitent Pointu, the Avignon murderer, a leader of a band as ferocious and bloodthirsty as himself. The military and civil authorities were powerless to check the excesses of the fanatical horde that rode roughshod over law and order, morality, decency, and ordinary human feeling.
Marseilles, Nîmes, Uzès, Avignon, Arles, and Carpentras were all involved in the White Terror, and one can hardly credit the details of the cruel crimes committed. Among the victims to the insensate Royalists was Marshal Brune, passing through on his way from Marseilles to Paris to defend his conduct to the Government. On reaching Avignon he sought out quarters in the Hôtel de la Poste. The news of his arrival had spread along with sinister stories as to his doings during the Revolution of 1789, and a great mob assembled around the hotel, broke in and shot the Marshal in cold blood. His body was on its way to burial when the crowd forced the bearers to change their course and proceed to the river-side, where a wooden bridge spanned the river. From this they threw the body of the Marshal into the silent Rhone. The ribald crowd fired shots into the body as it floated down the
stream, a proceeding which they termed “military honours.” On the arch of the bridge they wrote “The Tomb of Marshal Brune.” The river, however, refused the honour, and after twice being washed ashore, the corpse was taken and buried by two men, who recognised it. The Marshal’s widow, eventually, had the body disinterred and embalmed. At her instigation a public trial was held, at which the memory of the dead man was cleared of the charge of suicide and the body buried at Rioni.
This is one story; a sidelight on the happenings in Beautiful Provence at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The Papal Palace in Avignon stands steadfast amidst all the changes that have come to the city, for its outward features have successfully resisted the incessant hammerings of time. The work of internal renovation goes steadily on, whilst the white dust raised by the masons, who sing at their work, settles in every conceivable resting-place, much to the discomfort of the inhabitants, especially when the “mistral” sweeps down and drives this dust, like snow, before it. The old motto of the city