At Valence died and was buried the unfortunate Pope Pius VI. who had been treated with great harshness, and had been loaded with insults by the French. His was, indeed, a strange story. He began his pontificate in splendour in 1775, and set to work at once to aggrandise his family, the Braschi. He was a man of rapacious avarice; of this one glaring instance is given. He persuaded, or compelled, a certain Amanzio Lepri to constitute him his heir, and hand over to him the title-deeds of an estate worth many millions of lire. The natural heirs of Lepri were greatly annoyed at this, and instituted proceedings before the tribunals, which gave judgment sometimes for them and sometimes for the Pope, and the matter might have dragged on indefinitely, had not public opinion begun to manifest itself with such force that Pius thought it best to agree to a compromise.
In everything relating to himself and his family the Pope showed unbounded extravagance and ostentation. He had pedigrees manufactured to prove the descent of his family from ancient Scandinavian heroes, and that of his nephews, on whom he heaped honours, from the Dukes of Benevento. He collected all the proudest devices of heraldry to incorporate them as quarterings into his arms, and this gave rise to an epigram from the pen of an ex-Jesuit, to this effect: "The eagle belongs to the Empire, the lilies of the field to France, to heaven belongs the stars—to Braschi what? Puff."
His extravagance had become so great that the States of the Church were practically bankrupt long before the French overran and pillaged them. In his money difficulties he laid his hands on the funds appropriated to pious works, and so barefaced were his robberies at last, that ten years before the French invasion he had appropriated 36,000 pounds weight of silver from the Holy House of Loretto. Then came the crash. This luxurious and splendid Pope, in his old age, was reduced to be a prisoner, and to be hustled about from place to place by the French. He had been sent first to the Certosa, near Florence, with only two companions; then, by order of the Directory, was conveyed to Parma. There he was allowed to remain only thirteen days, and, in spite of his age and growing infirmities, was conveyed to the citadel of Turin. One day was there allowed him for repose, and then he was carried over the Alpine pass of Mont Genèvre in April to Briançon. There he was left in peace, but sick and feeble, till the end of June, when he was hurried away by Gap towards Dijon, but at Valence he became so ill that he could be no further moved, and there he died on the 29th August 1799, three days after his arrival.
[Illustration: Doorway and niche in the Maison des Têtes, Valence.]
The story is told that the official at Briançon on receiving him, sent to headquarters a formal receipt couched in these terms: "Reçu—un pape, en fort mauvais état."
There is not much of interest in domestic architecture at Valence, with the sole exception of the Maison des Têtes, which stands near the market-place, and which is sculptured over with great richness, with heads representing the seasons, and Roman emperors. The enrichment of this house is in the style of Flamboyant passing into Renaissance; the façade being in sandstone has been sadly gnawed by the tooth of Time, has indeed lost all edge to the sculpture, but within the entrance porch, where protected, the sandstone retains its sharpness. Curiously enough, no one knows for whom this gorgeous mansion was raised. It has a pretty interior court, but there is not much sculpture therein. One cannot quite forgive the original owner and edifier of the mansion for a bit of ostentation and vulgarity of which he has been guilty. The house has one portion looking on to the square, but at the side bends away at an obtuse angle down the street. As the whole façade was not visible at a single glance, only that portion which was most seen was sculptured, and that with overpowering richness, whereas the other portion in the street was left bare to baldness. Wind and rain and frost are engaged in rubbing down all the decoration, and flattening the surface of the decorated portion to the simplicity of the other part.
The same destroying agencies are at work upon a very quaint mausoleum, on the north side of the cathedral, called Le Pendentif, which was erected in 1548 in Classic style as a monument to the Mistral family. It is quadrangular, and consists of four great piers at the angles, and is adorned with pillars and with arches in the sides sustaining a vault. In the rusticated space that fills the sides, quaint sculptures of monsters and birds of foreign plumage may, or rather might have been traced, the honeycombing by weather has made them almost undiscoverable. Probably the structure is more picturesque now in its decay than it ever was before.
Immediately opposite Valence, on the farther side of the Rhone, rises a bold scarp of sandstone cliff, crowned with the ruined castle of Crussol above the village of S. Peray at its feet, where is made a very capital sparkling wine, not at all inferior to champagne. There is also there an odd château, designed, it is believed, by Marshal Vauban, on the plan of a mimic fortress, with bastions, curtains, glacis, portcullis, and loopholes. It is now the residence of the owner of the great vineyards where the S. Peray effervescing wine is made.
The view of the cliff of Crussol and the village of S. Peray from the terrace of Valence is spoiled by the river being at some distance from the base of the terrace, and the flat land that intervenes being covered by poplars, manufactories and cottages, so that the Rhone is shut out from sight.
Originally, certainly, the cliff on which stands the cathedral, as well as that now converted into a promenade, were swept by the Rhone, but it has thrown its gravels on to the left bank and cut its way farther to the west.