Having familiarized ourselves with the leading features of Avignon and its vicinity, as viewed from this commanding point, we descended into the town to take a more particular survey.
Rhetor comes Heliodorus,
Græcorum longè doctissimus.
To translate Horace freely, our companion was a rhetorician, or talker by profession, and the most learned of his class in extraordinary legends and fabrications; in other respects an useful civil fellow, with an Irish brogue, which his service in the French army had not been able to eradicate, or even weaken, and the established cicerone of the place. To account satisfactorily for his wooden leg and French uniform, he anticipated our inquiries by informing us, that he had been crippled by a shipwreck on the French coast, and through the recommendation of his friends the Duchess of Westmoreland and Countess of Devonshire, patronized by Louis, "who allowed him this uniform coat to wear, and two males a-day." In England, one would not have borne the sight of such a lying varlet another instant, but I must confess that the mere sound of our own language in a foreign town, disarmed our indignation, and we bore with the fellow, whom we found not unamusing, and from his local knowledge, serviceable. A very small degree of merit indeed suffices to open one's heart towards a fellow-countryman in a strange land; a truth no doubt known and acted on by knights of industry, matrimonial speculators, and
"Broken dandies lately on their travels."
The legate's palace is now divided into barracks and a prison, and the nakedness of its appearance upon a nearer view make its lofty proportions more striking. We were expressing to each other our wonder at its size, when our guide interrupted us with an original observation of his own:—"The reason of its size, sir, is quite clare. The pope, you see, always went about with such a hape of monks—and of nuns—and of all them kind of people, that the big number of rooms which you see could hardly hold them any how." After all, if the annals of former times have been truly written, the Milesian's account of this merry menage might be nearer the truth than he knew or suspected.
The Papal Chapel exhibits now but few remains of its former probable grandeur, its inside having been defaced with the most persevering animosity during the Revolution, and presenting little more than a damp bare shell, filled with the broken remains of monumental figures. Headless popes and crippled cardinals lie together in heaps, mingled in a manner which will render it impossible to restore to each his proper allotment of limbs, when the projected repairs of the chapel are put in execution. One tomb, broken up and shattered to pieces more than the rest, was pointed out by the old woman as the sepulchre of La belle Laure, an honour which, for aught I know, may be claimed by a tomb in every church of Avignon. An assertion apparently still more apocryphal, however, is that one of the small side chapels was built by Constantine.
The interior of Avignon affords a much more agreeable promenade than that of Lyons, from the superior cleanliness of its inhabitants, and the moderate height of the houses. These circumstances tend to disperse the combinations of ill smell, and purify the thick, vapid, flagging air which is felt so perceptibly at Lyons. It may, perhaps, be beneath the dignity of a printed book to enumerate such circumstances as these, but they occupy in fact a high place in the scale of human comfort; and, joined to the cheapness of the necessaries of life, (which we inferred from the price of two or three articles of consumption,) must have their weight in rendering Avignon a desirable place of banishment. Banishment, I say; for I have no better name by which to express a prolonged residence abroad, especially in cases where the mind has lost its power of deriving amusement from trifles.
With the exception of its fine walls, its Gothic bridge, and the legate's palace, Avignon possesses in itself no remarkable architectural feature, or fine combination of buildings. Its churches are numerous; but no one remarkable above the rest, as far at least as external appearance is concerned; and we had not time for a very minute internal survey. The Hôpital des Fous, however, is an establishment well calculated to gratify the laudable curiosity of the humane; and to judge from all we witnessed, may perhaps exhibit points of internal regulation worthy the attention of professional men. Nothing indeed can exceed the quiet, orderly behaviour of the patients there confined, whom we found walking about at perfect liberty in a square court planted with trees. Many of them wore a certain air of content and satisfaction which could not be mistaken, and all seemed much gratified by the notice of the mild sensible ecclesiastic who accompanied us, and who presides over the establishment. No coercion, as we understood from him, is used, save restriction from walking with their fellow patients, and the restraint of handcuffs, when rendered necessary in cases of violent conduct. I particularly observed also, that he had never any occasion to exert that command of the eye, on which so much stress is laid as a means of intimidation, but passed all their little follies off with a smile, in which we were frequently inclined to join. One poor patient accosted us with high titles of nobility, dwelling on the peculiar pleasure he experienced from our visit; another, an old man of a very venerable appearance, called our attention to a dirty stone which he held in his hand, affirming it to be a piece of Henri Quatre's identical foot: but none were troublesome or obtrusive, and most appeared to be deriving as much enjoyment from their own little vagaries as their melancholy state would admit of.[30] Their apartments, built round the square, are neat and airy, each furnished with a bed, dressing table, and a few plain utensils. In one large room are a row of hot and cold baths, which are frequently and regularly used; and nothing, the good priest said, has been found to produce so desirable an effect on the mind and body as this custom. The rank of the patients is various; the poorer sort are supported by voluntary contributions; and many persons in the higher ranks are also placed here at their own expense, or that of their friends. Among others, there is a general who became deranged, as we were assured, on hearing of the abdication of his patron Napoleon; the most unequivocal instance of misplaced fidelity, which I have ever heard. How this poor man contrives to agree with the partizan of Henry IV., I am at a loss to make out: and he was not then visible to answer for himself. At the time of the Revolution, the estates belonging to the hospital were confiscated; and the establishment itself would have been abolished, had not one of the members of the council at Avignon observed, half in jest, that they might possibly be one day glad themselves of such a retreat. It is now, as I mentioned, maintained by private donations, and by the salaries paid for the accommodation of the richer patients. The only objects of taste belonging to the institution are a fine altar-piece attributed to Murillo, and an ivory crucifix carved by Jean Guillermin, in 1659. The latter is not above two feet in length; but the manner in which every muscle and vein indicate suffering, and the mingled expression of pain and resignation in the countenance, place it on the footing of a statue; and I could hardly have supposed that a small piece of ivory-carving could do such justice to a sacred subject. The worthy priest dwelt, with great exultation, on the precautions he had taken to secure this favourite relic from revolutionary pillage, slightly alluding to the circumstance of having been forced to fly for his life to Italy, as a matter of minor importance to himself.
The admirers of show houses, may find some gratification in visiting the hotel of M. De Leutre, the banker; which was purchased of M. Villeneuve, an emigré, and contains, besides the usual etceteras of carving and gilding, orange-trees, and gold fish, a curious collection of prints representing Chinese battles, and supposed to be the only perfect duplicate of that in the royal collection. A sight more interesting is presented in the hospital of invalid soldiers, established in the place; 1500 of whom are maintained as in-pensioners, apparently in great comfort. "On est bien ici," said a blind veteran, who, hearing the voices of strangers, invited us to walk in; and indeed most of those whom we saw strolling in the garden, or sitting under the shade of the trees, seemed very cheerful, though some of them, and those very young men, were dreadfully mutilated, and the loss of both legs very common. The two buildings which accommodate them were formerly the Convent des Celestins, and that of the Dames de St. Louis. Two other handsome convents have been converted to uses less beneficent, one being now a gunpowder manufactory, and the other a cannon foundery.
In the evening we walked across the long wooden bridge adjoining our hotel,[31] towards the western bank of the Rhone; and the expectations which we had formed of the view from this quarter, were not disappointed. The Roche Don terminates more abruptly on the side of the river than in any other part, and in a manner which sets off strikingly the commanding height of the legate's palace. With this princely pile of building, the broken Gothic bridge and its guard-house, the ancient palace of the archbishop, and a portion of the battlemented walls of Avignon, combine to form a striking architectural group, whose unity of character is hardly at all broken by meaner objects; and the whole is well backed by Mont Ventou and the Dauphiné Alps. From this spot we again returned to Roche Don, a station to which every visitor of Avignon may return twice or thrice in the day with undiminished pleasure. In our way we fell in with a procession of children, the eldest of whom could not be more than seven years of age, in pairs, and with lighted candles in their hands, escorting a cross of lath and a very indifferent daub, which represented some female saint, and screaming in chorus with all their might. Those who had no candles, ran about with little dishes, vociferously begging money to buy some; and in spite of the respect with which one would wish to consider whatever fellow Christians choose to denominate, in pure earnest, a religious ceremony, it was impossible not to be reminded, by the petitions of these sucking Catholics, of Guy Fawkes's little votaries on the fifth of November. We thought involuntarily of a boy who had followed us that very morning into the church of St. Didier, tossing a ball in his hand, and after crossing himself with great gravity, immediately began his game again. Whether the interests of religion gain or suffer most by the familiarity with the ordinary business of life which it assumes in Catholic countries, is a point which I cannot presume to determine. It is true, that it may frequently occasion such ridiculous scenes as those which I have mentioned; and our habits of mind, as Protestants, may lead us to conceive that such familiarity may tend to generate levity and indifference. On the other hand, however, amidst all the mummery which may mix itself up with the occasional ceremonies of the Catholic service, there is much worthy of commendation in the more common ordinances, to which alone a sensible Catholic must look for religious improvement. I particularly allude to the shortness and frequent recurrence of the mass (such as it is), and the constant access afforded to Catholic churches, in which some service or other appears to be carried on during great part of the day. These regulations are well adapted to take advantage of those serious trains of thought which often arise most forcibly at accidental times, and from unpremeditated causes. The attention is thus excited without being fatigued, and the privacy of the closet is combined with that solemnity which attaches itself to the house of God. It may be said, indeed, that to consult the caprices and associations of the human mind, is to lower the dignity of religion; but surely a good end must justify any means which are not in themselves culpable or ridiculous. The mechanic, for instance, in returning from his daily labour, enters an open church from accident or curiosity, crosses himself from habit, and is led on by the momentary feeling of reverence which that act must generally awaken, to employ five minutes in his devotions, a well spent portion of time, which probably would not otherwise have been rescued from the business of the day, but which may influence his conduct during the rest of it.