“THE GREAT PALACE.”—AVIGNON. [To List]
Clement enjoyed ownership in the same agreeable manner as his predecessors, “without the untying of purse-strings.” Perhaps he used the purse's contents for the more pressing claim of the great Palace of which he built so large a part; perhaps he handed it, still filled, to Innocent VI who built the famous fortifications of Avignon and protected himself against the marauding “White Companies,” perhaps it was still untouched when Bertrand du Guesclin and his Grand Company stood before the gate and demanded “benediction, absolution, and two hundred thousand pounds.” “What!” the Pope is said to have cried, “must we give absolution, which here in Avignon is paid for, and then give money too—it is contrary to reason!” Du Guesclin replied to the bearer of these words, “Here are many who care little for absolution, and much for money,”—and Urban yielded.
Gregory XI, the last of the “French Popes,” returned to Rome, and at his death the “Great Schism” followed;—Clement VII, in Avignon, was recognised by France, Spain, Scotland, Sicily, and Cyprus; Urban VI, in Rome, by Italy, Austria, and England. The County Venaissin was ravaged by wars and the pests that come in their train. At length the Avignonnais, who had not enjoyed greater peace under their anointed rulers than under worldling Counts, rose against Pierre de Luna, the “Anti-pope” Benedict XIII, who fled. From that time no Pontiff entered the gates, and the city was administered by papal legates. In later days, in spite of the sacred character of its rulers and his own undoubted orthodoxy, Louis XIV seized Avignon several times; and Louis XV, in unfilial vengeance for the excommunication of the Duke of Parma, took possession of the city. But it was not until after the beginning of the French Revolution, in 1791, that the Avignonnais themselves arose, chased the Vice-Legate of the Pope from the city, and appealed for union with France; and it was at this period that the Chapel of Sainte-Marthe, the Cloister, and the Chapter House were swept away. Thus ended the temporal power of the Papacy in France, planned for worldly profit and carried out with many sordid compromises;—a residency unnoted for great deeds or noble intentions and whose close marked the “Great Schism.”
To-day papal Avignon is become French Avignon, a pleasant city where the Provençal sun is hot and where the Mistral whistles merrily. Above the banks of the Rhone the simple Cathedral stands, with its priests still garbed in papal red, its Host still carried under the white papal panoply. Here also is the great Palace of the Popes, “which is indeed,” says Froissart, “the strongest and most magnificent house in the world.” And yet its grim walls suggest neither peace nor rest; and to him who recalls, this great, impressive pile tells neither of glories nor of triumphs. Bands of unbelieving Pastoureaux marched toward it; soldiers of the “White Companies” and soldiers of du Guesclin gazed mockingly at it; it was the prison of Rienzi, and the home of the harassed Popes who had ever before them, just across the river, the menacing tower of that “fair king” who had led them into “Babylonish captivity.”
Vaison.
On the banks of a pleasant little river among the Provençal hills is Vaison, one of the ancient Gallic towns which became entirely romanised; and many illustrious families of the Empire had summer villas there as at Arles and Orange. Barbarians of one epoch or another have devastated Vaison of all her antique treasures, except the remains of an Amphitheatre on the Puymin Hill. Germanic tribes who swooped down in early centuries destroyed her villas and her greater buildings; and vandals of a later day have scattered her sculptures and her tablets here and there. Some are in the galleries of Avignon; a Belus, the only one found in France, was sent to the Museum of Saint-Germain; and in the multitude of treasures in the British Museum, the most beautiful of all her statues, a Diadumenus, is artistically lost. In the days when it still adorned the city, during the reign of the Emperor Gallienus, Vaison was christianised by Saint Ruf, her Bishopric was founded, and in 337 the first General Council of the Church held in Gaul assembled here. Another Council in the V century, and still another in the VI, are proof of her continued importance.
“ON THE BANKS OF A PLEASANT LITTLE RIVER IS VAISON.” [To List]