The story of Avignon

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA

SAN DIEGO

J

6<?

a.-
DC

The Story of AvigJion

The church

of S^ Didier *

The Story of AvigDOn

by ThofJias Okey ^ ^
Illustrated by Percy Wadham

London: J. M. De7lt <Sf So71S^ Ltd.
Bedford Street, Covent Garden, IV. C.
New York : E. P. Button ^ Co. 1 9 1 1

All rights raer'ved

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER 1

PAGE

Introductory ...... i

CHAPTER II

Legend of St. Martha — The First Bishop-
Franks and Arabs ..... 7

CHAPTER HI

The Counts of Provence — Republic of Avignon —

Builditig of the Great Bridge . . . 15

CHAPTER IV

The Albigetises — Siege of Avignon by Louis Fill

— End of the Republic of Avignon . . 27

CHAPTER V

The Papacy at Avignon — Pope Clement V , 43

CHAPTER VI

John XXII— The Black Art— Wealth of the

Papal Court — A Cardinals Hoard . . 57

Contents

CHAPTER VII

Petrarch at Avignon — Benedict XII — Clement

VI — Rienzi at Avignon .... 80

CHAPTER VIII

Petrarch and Laura of Avignon . . loi

CHAPTER IX

Petrarch at Vaucluse — Rienzi again — Death of

Clement VI and Election of Innocent F I . 117

CHAPTER X

Queen Joan of Naples — Sale of Avignon to the

Papacy ...... 140

CHAPTER XI

^he Dread Companions — Urban V — Bertrand
du Guesclin — Urban V at Rome — His Return
to Avignon — Gregory XI — St. Catherine at
Avignon — Return of the Papacy to Rome . 154

CHAPTER XII

The Great Schism — Urban VI v. Clement VII
— A Pope again at Avignon — Froissart at
Avignon — St. Pierre de Luxembourg . . 180

CHAPTER XIII

Benedict XIII — Siege of the Papal Palace — End

of the Great Schism . . . .197

Contents

CHAPTER XIV

Building of the Great Palace — Art and Luxury

at Papal Avignon . . . . . 211

CHAPTER XV

Life in a Mediaeval City — Law and Justice at

Avignon — The Jews .... 240

CHAPTER XVI

The Plague at Avignon — The University . . 254

CHAPTER XVII

Avignon under the Legates — The Huguenots —
The Inquisition — Royal Visitors — Tem-
porary Annexations to France . . . 265

CHAPTER XVIII

The Eighteenth Century at Avignon — The Old
and the Toung Pretenders — Fi7ial Annexa-
tion to France ..... 288

PART II— THE CITY

SECTION I

Notre Dame atid Le Rocher des Doms — Pont St.

Benezet ...... 297

SECTION II

The Papal Palace ..... 309

ix

Contents

SECTION III
^he City Walls

PAGE

SECTION IV

The Parish Churches of Avignon

• 336

SECTION V

The Abbeys and Friaries of Avignon

• 346

SECTION VI

The Guilds of Penitents

• 349

SECTION VII

Some Secular Edifices of Avignon : The Musee
Calvet .......

358

SECTION VIII

V illeneuve-les- Avignon .

373

SECTION IX

Vaucluse

390

appendix I ,

Appendix II
Short Bibliography
Index

394
395
397
403

ILLUSTRATIONS

HALF-TONE

Portrait of Petrarch . . To face page

PAGE

52

Portrait of Laura, so-called . „ „

102

St, Catherine of Siena . . ,, „

174

St. Siffrein .... „ „
Altar Piece, Notre Dame du Spasme „ „
Adoration of the Child Jesus . „ „

224
340

362

Coronation of the Virgin . „ „

378

LINE

The Church of St. Didier, Avignon Frontispiece
The Pont St. Benezet with the Chapel of St

Nicholas .....

Tower of Philip the Fair, Villeneuve-Us- Avignon
A Doorway, Carpentras
Tomb of Pope John XXII .
Monastery at Bompas .
Church of St. Agricol, Avignon
The Rocher des Doms .
Entrance to V illeneuve-li s- Avignon
Avignon from the Isle de la Barthelasse
A Portion of the Town W alls, Avignon
A Town Gate, Avignon
Chateaurenard ....
Porte d'Orange, Carpentras .
The Papal Palace, Avignon .
Plan of the Papal Palace, a.d. 1360

23
42

54

73

94

98

118

147
149
158
165
202
206
212
214

Illustrations

PAGE

Entrance to the Papal Palace, Avignon . . 226

Buttress in the Rue de la Peyrolerie . . 228

Notre Dame des Doms, Avignon . . . 266

Archiepiscopal Palace, Avignon . . . 267

Ancien Place Pie, Avignon .... 268
A Corner in the Chartreuse, Villenetwe-lis-

Avignon ...... 274

Chiteauneuf des Papes ..... 295

Old Papal Throne 301

House of the Painter Mignard, Avignon . . 303

Hdtel des Monnais, Avignon .... 304

Papal Palace, Court of Honour . . . 313

A portion of the Town Wall, Avignon . . 330

A portion of the Rampart, Avignon . . 332

Porte Petrarque ; now, de la Re'publique . . 333

Church of St. Pierre, Avignon . . . 338

Old Portal of Carmelite Monastery, Avignon . 343

Tower, Augustinian Monastery, Avignon . . 345

Jacquemart ....... 359

Portal, Hotel Baroncelli-Javon . . . 360

A Street Corner, V illeneuve-les- Avignon . . 374
The Arcades, Villeneuve . . . .376

Courtyard of the Hdtel de Conti, Villeneuve-les-

Avignon . . . . . .380

Old Buildings in the Chartreuse de Villeneuve . 385

Fort St. Andre, F illeneuve-les- J^vignon . . 386

Rotonde de la Fontaine, Chartreuse de Villeneuve 387

MAPS

Map of ylvignon . . . To face page I

Avignon about 1650 . . „ „ 403

PREFACE

The story of Avignon presents in the main a
sequence of disconnected scenes, or acts, of many
dramas. Great historic figures — the Raymonds of
Toulouse, Louis \'III, popes and anti-popes, empe-
rors and kings ; Robert the Wise, Petrarch, Rienzi,
St. Catherine of Siena, Joan of Naples — enact a scene
or scenes of their troubled or tragic lives in the little
hill city on the Rhone ; they have their brief passage
before the footlights ; they pass away to other stages
and are seen there no more. The writer of the ensuing
pages has essayed, within these limitations, to recall
the chief actors to the minds of such English-speaking
travellers as may care to interrupt their passage to or
from the south by a short sojourn at Avignon, whose
majestic, cliff-like palace is so familiar to their sight
from the windows of a railway carriage as the train
descends or ascends the valley of the Rhone. No
more interesting halt can be chosen on the long
journey between Paris and Marseilles. Excellent
hotels to suit all pockets ; a climate, apart from the
rare visitations of the mistral, mild, crisp, and bright ;
a gracious and attractive folk ; a centre whence varied
and beautiful excursions may be made to the old
cities and ruined castles of Provence and Languedoc.
And some few, more leisured wayfarers, lured by the
charm of the old papal city and its picturesque
surroundings, may, perchance, be tempted to linger

xiii

Preface

amid the circle of those pale, parched hills, so dear to
a modern poetess,^ with their orchard-ring of almond-
trees —

More fair than happier trees, I think.
Grown in well-watered pasture land.

These parched and stunted branches, pink
Above the stones and sand.

O white, austere, ideal place,

Where very few will care to come.

Where Spring hath lost the saving grace
She wears for us at home !

Fain would I sit and watch for hours

The holy whiteness of thy hills.
Their wealth of pale auroral flowers,
Their peace the silence fills.
June 1 9 1 1 ,

1 Mme. Darmesteter, "An Orchard at Avignon."

THE STORY OF AVIGNON

PART I

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

Richest among the manifold gifts bestowed by
Nature on the fair land of France are her magnificent
rivers ; and of these, the broad and rapid Rhone,
which, with its tributary the Saone, formed a price-
less waterway for the commerce of the ancient world,
is the greatest. The Rhone was the chief trade route
from Marseilles to the centre of Gaul, and the cities
along its banks, now known as Aries, Avignon, Orange,
Valence, Vienne, Lyons, were so many ports of call
for the daring navigators that sailed westwards from
Tyre and Sidon and Phocxa and other mercantile
centres of the eastern Mediterranean. That there
was a flourishing Phoenician city at Marseilles is
proved by the discovery in 1845 of a long tariff" of
dues to the priests of 15aal for their various sacrificial
offices, and the story in Herodotus of a subsequent
settlement at Marseilles by the Phoca^an colonists
from Asia Minor, who chose to expatriate themselves
rather than submit to Cyrus, is well known.

When the Roman conquerors had driven their mar-
vellous roads through Gaul, the Rhone — that road that

Avignon

marches and carries — was still the great way of the
nations, and even down to comparatively recent times
the northern traveller to the south of France or to
Italy " fell down the Rhone" to Avignon or Aries.
The first stage of the journey was Vienne, and
Evelyn well remembered the dainty dish of truffles he
had to his supper at that port on his journey in 1 644.
It was a rapid but sometimes a perilous voyage.
From Vienne the boat " swam " down, for steering
only was needed, and the shooting of the Pont St.
Esprit was attended with so much risk that timid
passengers were often landed above the bridge and con-
tinued their journey by carriage. ^ In 1574 a boat
carrying the baggage of Henry III to Avignon was
wrecked there, and all the baggage and many of the
crew were drowned. Special pilots and special
insurance rates were required for the passage through
its sinister arches.

But swift as was the downward course of the
great rafts and heavily laden boats of the early
carriers, as slow was the ascent against the mighty
sweep of the current and the prevailing winds from
the north. There was no sailing above Tarascon,
and some conception of the time required to win
up the Rhone in ancient days, when long teams of
broad-chested, slow-paced oxen toiled up the rough
tow-path, m.ay be formed if we remember that so
late as the early decades of the nineteenth century
the average period of haulage from Aries to Lyons
was from twenty-eight to thirty days and no less
than thirty or forty horses were needed to tow a
train of boats carrying in all about 300 tons. Even
in Smollett's time the return passenger boats were

' Diary, September 30, 1644. Sf^ also Haley's L//^ of Romney
and Smollett's Travels.

Inti'oductory

drawn against the stream by oxen, which swam
through one of the arches of the Pont St. Esprit, the
driver sitting between the horns of the foremost
beast; and readers of Mistral's charming autobiography^
will recall the old peasant who boasted that before
the railway came he had driven the finest teams up
the Rhone — eighty noble stallions harnessed four by
four.

What the iron road is to the expanding and con-
quering nations of the modern world, the paved
road was to the ancient Romans ; and few roads were
more important than those that converged on the
valley of the Rhone. Beyond the junction of the
two ways from Italy and Spain, at Aries, the great
north road followed the left bank of the Rhone to
Lyons, where, crossing the river, it led by the right
bank of the Saone to Chalons. There it branched
into four ways, of which one led westwards, to the
valley of the Loire and Brittany ; a second, by the
valleys of the Yonne and the Seine, to Paris and
the ports for Britain ; a third, by the valley of the
Somme, over the Vosges and by the valley of the
Moselle to Germany ; a fourth, following the valley
of the Doubs, crossed the Jura to the Rhine and led
to the ports of the German Ocean. Of the eight
highways between Italy and the Rhone valley, that
whicii followed the valley of the Po and, by way of
Turin, Mont Genevre and Brianfon to the valleys
of the Drome or of the Durance, was the classic and
natural connection between Cisalpine and Trans-
alpine Gaul : and the Durance entered the Rhone
just below Avignon. From Lyons to the sea, in
olden jlmes, the Rhone was spanned by no more
than one stone bridge — that at Vienne ; for even the
' F. MisTKAL : Moun EipeliJo. 1906.
B 2 3

Avignon

engineering skill of the Romans appears to have
shrunk from the magnitude of the task involved in
further pontifical construction on that intolerant
stream.

The acropolis of Avignon commanded the richest
land of Gaul. To this day the old county Venais-
sin possesses the most prolific soil in France ; it
supplies western Europe with the primeurs of the
fruits of the earth, and the little railway station of
Barbentane is one of the busiest agricultural dis-
tributing centres of Provence. Fantoni, an Italian,
writing in the seventeenth century, dilates on the
ravishing prospect of its broad champaign ; its charm-
ing hills ; its relative freedom from horrid mountains ; ^
its natural loveliness, equalled only by its fertility ;
nothing is lacking for the food and enjoyment of
man ; it is an epitome of all the fair things that are
scattered over the provinces of France. Arthur Young,
who travelled thither in August 1789, dwells on the
delights of the country near Avignon ; the beautiful,
well-planted, umbrageous roads ; the delicious effect
to the expert eye of its superb irrigation. Hardly a
richer or better cultivated sixteen miles of land could
be found anywhere than that between the Isle de
Sorgues and Avignon.

No longer can the traveller survey from the river
the wonderful scene that unfolds itself to the eye
■when descending the valley of the Rhone from Lyons
to Avignon. Save a few cargo steamers the once
busy Rhone is silent and deserted. No longer down
its swift and ample stream do the great vessels sweep,
manned by those tall, stalwart boatmen — shouting,
swearing colossi, with shaggy beards — of whom Mistral
sings in the Poemo dou Rose. Their incessant cries :

^ Poco d'orrore d'aspre montagne.

Introductory

Pro vcro la haisso, hou ! Rcutume ! Empcri ! arc
heard no more, and all that remains of a naviga-
tion that had " Realm ! Empire ! " for its cries are
the furrows left by the cables on the stones along the
river banks. Even the little Gladiateur that used
to puft' her way up and down the Rhone between
Lyons and Avignon ceased running in 1907, and
the traveller to-day must be content to catch what
glimpses he can from the windows of a railway
carriage.^

As one descends the bank of the broadening river
below Fietma la bclla the air softens, and the landscape
begins to assume a southern aspect. At Valence the
dark cypress and her spire — that sentinel of the south
— comes into view ; the mulberry, the olive, the
almond, the chestnut, the oleander, the myrtle, the
ilex and the stone-pine, tell of sunnier skies. Even
the common flowers of the north are transfigured
under the magic of the bright, translucent sky : the
poppy takes on a more sanguine hue, the gorse and
broom a more refulgent yellow. The regular
features, the dark hair and swarthy complexions, the
arlesienne coiffure and queenly carriage of the women
— the rapid gesture, the vivacity, the staccato accent of
the men — tell us we are among a difix;rent race, among
the inhabitants of fair Provence, riantc et douce. But
there are other aspects of smiling and sweet Provence
that the passing tourist more rarely beholds : its

^ A great international scheme is, however, said to be
ripening, whereby the Rhone may regain some of its old activity.
A Swiss Navigation Company is to prolong the river route
from Bale to Geneva, and the French authorities are
to open navigation on the Rhone between Geneva and
Marseilles. Ultimately a waterway from the North Sea by the
Rhine and the Rhone to tlie Mediterranean may be opened to
commerce.

5

Avignon

brazen summer firmament ; the pitiless heat of a Pro-
vencal sun ; the hot, white, blinding roads whirled
into hurricanes of choking dust by the fierce mistral ;
arid, limestone cliffs intolerant of culture ; river-beds
now dry, now ravaged by torrential streams ; the
harsh rigid outlines of hills crowned by ruined
frowning castles ; the sombre, Spanish hue of its
domestic architecture ; the immense sadness of the
stony Sahara-like plains of the greater and the lesser
Craus, all of which have left their impress on Provenfal
legend and song.^

^ The story runs, that Hercules fighting against the giant
sons of Neptune found himself short of missiles, whereupon,
calling on Zeus for aid, the father of gods and men let fall
from heaven a m'ghty hail cf stones which formed the stony
waste of the Craus,

CHAPTER II

LEGEND OF ST, MARTHA THE FIRST BISHOP FRANKS

AND ARABS

Medl^evat, chroniclers begin the story of Avignon
at the Deluge. There are, says Fantoni/ that refer
the foundation of this city to the time of the patriarch
Noah, who, after the Flood and before the Confusion
of Tongues, put forth to sea with his three sons and
showed them the coasts of the earth which he had
divided among them : Europe he assigned to Japheth,
who, ten years thereafter, sent forth chiefs to found
colonics. Of these chiefs, one sailed up the mouth of
the Rhone and founded the city of Avignon, which,
from a Colonia that it then was, became a Tetra-
politana thirty-three years later, when Samotes Dis,
fourth son of Japheth, was sent to Gaul by Noah and,
entering the Rhone from the Mediterranean Sea, landed
at Avignon. "But these," concludes Fantoni, "are
but fables, mere empty dreams, repugnant to Holy
Scripture ; and all the learned flee from them, with
one accord, both with sail and oars." It is only
when they reach the coming of St. Martha and her
blessed companions that the seventeenth-century
historians of Avignon feel themselves on solid
ground. " It was in the year of our Lord 35," says
Fantoni, " that our saints reached the shores of
Provence and touched land at that open spot which

1 Isroria d'Afiguonc. 1678.

Avignon

is named of the Three Marys." Fantoni follows the
fifteenth-century legend which includes the two Marys
and Salome, and Mary the mother of James, among the
outcasts. But, according to the "Golden Legend," it
was St. Martha, hostess of Our Lord, with Lazarus her
brother, her sister Mary and St. Maximin, who were
put into a ship by the Jews and cast upon the sea
" wythout sayle ores or other gouvernayle " ; and
Martha, " who was righte facund of speche and
curtoys and gracious to the sight of the people,"
went her way with Marcella her servant preaching
the Gospel of Christ ; and on her way up the Rhone
she came upon a " grete dragon, halfe beste halfe
fysshe, gretter than an oxe, lenger than an hors,
having tethe sharpe as a swerde & horned on either
syde, hede lyke a lyon, tayle lyke a serpent, &
defended hym with two wynges on eyther syde &
coude not be beten wyth cast of stones ne wyth other
armour & was strong as xii lyons or beres : which
dragon lay hydyng & lurkyng in the ryver & peryeshed

them that passyd by & drowned shyppes To

whom Martha at the prayer of the peple came into
the wode & found hym etyng a man. And she cast
on hym holy water & shewed to hym the crosse,
which anon was overcomen, & standyng styl as a
sheepe, she bonde him wyth her owen gyrdle ^ &
thenne was slayne wyth speres & glayves of the peple.
The dragon was called of them that dwellyd in the
contre Tharasconus. And on a tyme at Avignon
whan she preched bytween the toun and the ryver of
Roon there was a yong man on that other syde of the
ryver desyring to here her wordes & had no bote to
pass over : he began to swymme naked but he was
sodenly taken by the strengthe of the water & anon
^ Another legend says her garter.

Legend of St. Martha

suffocate and drowned, whose body unnethe was
fondcn the nextc day. And when it was taken up it
was presented at the feet of Martha for to be reysed
to lyfe. She then in maner of a crosse fyl doun to
the grounde & prayed in this maner : O addonay
lord Jcsu Christ which raysedest somtyme my wel
beloved brother, beholdc my most derc gheste to the
faythe of them that stonde here & reyse thys chylde.
And she toke him by the hande ; and forthwyth he
aroos, lyving, & receyved the holy bapteme."

St. Martha, hostess of Our Lord, say the chroniclers,
dwelt long years in the city of Avignon, together
with her servant Marcella, who was believed to be
that inspired woman who cried out, " Blessed is the
womb," etc. In the seventeenth century the cave
where Martha and Marcella dwelt was still shown
near the Tour de Trouillas, between the cathedral
cloister and the papal palace. She was believed to
have built a church to the Virgin on the Rock of
Avignon, and in the old office sung on the octave ot
St. Agricol. St. Martha was celebrated as the founder
of a nunnery near the same spot.

The pilgrimage ^ to the castellated old church ot
Les Trois Maries, rebuilt by good King Rene to
preserve their relics, is one of the most popular in
Avignon and Provence generally. There is a charm-
ing story, in his autobiography, of the pilgrimage
macie by Mistral in 1855, before the days of the rail-
way— fourteen happy, laughing pilgrims couched on
straw in a wagon, their slow, leisurely progress
gladdened by legend and song. Readers of Mistral's
Mirc'ilk, too, will remember in that delightful idyll
of the loves of Vincent the young basket-maker and
the farmer's daughter, the beautiful Provenfal verse

' May 24 and 25.

9

Avignon

wherein the legend of the Three Marys and of the
coming of St. Martha is enshrined. ^ The story is, or
was in Mistral's early days, still green in the minds of
the peasants of Provence, who, when they dwelt with
loving memory, as old folk are wont to do, on bygone
days, would say : "Ah, that was in the good old times
when Martha span"; remembering how, as children,
they were told of the hostess of their Lord, sitting in
her rocky cave in the midst of her converts and
spinning the while she instructed them in the faith of
Christ. Yet another traditional link with the gospel
story is recalled by the ruined Romanesque church of
St. Ruf that still exists a short distance from Avignon,
whose patron saint is identified with St. Rufus, son ot
that Simon of Cyrene,and one of the Seventy, who was
compelled to bear the cross : the Rufus also referred
to in the Epistle to the Romans.- Rufus is famed to
have been the first bishop of Avignon, and to have
built a monastery not far from the walls of the city,
whither he afterwards retired with his followers to
live in austere penance and in contemplation.

As early as the year 125 b.c. southern Gaul had
become a Roman province ; but it was not until
the final conquest by Julius Cssar that the Latin
tongue and the Latin civilization were impressed for
ever upon its people, and that Avignon, in common
with other cities of Provence, was made a Roman
colony, its citizens being endowed with privileges
almost equal to those of Rome herself.

During the great Roman peace Avignon was happy
in having no history, and into the twilight and
gathering darkness that enveloped the decaying
empire we can but dimly peer. A second bishop,

1 Chants X and XI.

- "Salute Rufus the chosen in the Lord" (xvi. 13).

10

The First Bishop

St. Just, is said to have sat in Rufus's chair until the
year 90, but from that date down to 45 I only one
bishop is known to the ecclesiastical annals of Nouguier.
Other writers have peopled the darkness with shadowy
figures, some anonymous, but little is known of those
obscure centuries when wave after wave of barbarian
invasion swept down the valley of the Rhone on the fair
fields and cultured folk of southern Gaul, and when
the Christian bishops were knitting together the
ravelled fabric of civic life. A century before Christ
hordes of Cimbri and Teutons had shown the way to
the fat lands of the new Roman province, routing five
pro-consular armies before they were finally crushed
by Marius at Aix. During the civil wars, Vandal
and Goth, Frank and Burgundian, Lombard and
Saxon, ravaged the inheritance of Caesar, or disputed
its possession. The glimpses we catch in the pages
of the early Gallic chroniclers of the savage warfare
and piteous desolation wrought by the Burgundian
civil wars and by the Merovingian anarchy are but
few, and rarely concerned with the lands of the south.
One precious testimony, however, we do find to the
high culture and advanced civic life of Avignon in
the chronicle of St. Gregory of Tours. Clotaire,
king of the Franks (558-561), desiring to advance
his faithful friend Domnolus, Bishop of Mans, be-
thought him of the vacant see of Avignon ; but the
blessed Domnolus, hearing thereof, having spent the
night in prayer, approached Clotaire and besought
him not to send his servant from his sight nor suffer
him, a simple-minded prelate, to dwell humiliated
among senators who were sophists and magistrates
who were philosophers.^

' St. Gregory : Hist. Franc, Book VI. 9. Inter scnatores
so^/iisticos ac juJices fhilosophicos,

I I

Avignon

Avignon, which during the Roman peace was of
small importance compared with Aries and Vienna
and other commercial centres of Provence, emerges
during the barbaric wars into some prominence by
reason of its military strength ; for in ancient times
the fortress city, except one narrow neck of land, was
girt by the waters of the Rhone and of the Sorgue.
The mighty Clovis flung his ever-victorious hosts in
vain against it, and in 583 it endured a memorable
siege by Gontran, son of Clotaire. Mummolus, whom
he sought to capture, had already won fame by
defeating the Saxons ; and on a second invasion, when
they had ravaged the country round Avignon, he
forced them to purchase their passage across the Rhone
at the price of many thousand pieces of gold. The
victorious captain made a vigorous defence ; he cut
a canal through the neck of land that gave access to
the city and prepared a fleet of boats which appeared
water-worthy, but which were cunningly contrived
to collapse under the stress of the oars. On the
appearance of the besiegers along the right side of
the Rhone, Mummolus made a feint to abandon the
boats, which were seized by Gontran, who embarked
a large part of his warriors in them, most of whom
perished in the river. At various places in the cut
Mummolus had dug deep pits over which the water
flowed, and when at length Gontran had passed the
remainder of his army over the Rhone, Mummolus
cried to him from the city walls : " If thou art of
good faith I will stand on this side of the stream,
and do thou stand on the other, and say thence what
thou wouldst ask of me." When each had come to
his place, the stream being between them, Gontran
said : " An thou wilt suffer me, I will cross over, for
there be many things whereof we must confer in

Franks and Arabs

secret." " Come, and fear naught," was the answer.
Gontran and an officer then spurred their horses into
the water, and both fell into a pit. His companion,
weighed down by a heavy cuirass, was swallowed up
and seen no more : Gontran succeeded in catching a
lance held forth to him by one of his men and was
dragged ashore.^ Avignon, by reason of its strength,
was chosen by Mummolus as the depository of all
his treasure, and at his capture and death his wife
discovered it to Chikiebert, who despatched an officer
thither to seize the hoard, which amounted to 250
talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.-

But in the first half of the eighth century a scourge
more terrible by far than that of Goth or Vandal
fell on the unhappy lands of Provence, The Arab
conquerors of Spain, after their defeat at Poictiers,
wheeling their legions from the western to the
eastern passes of the Pyrenees, swept up the valley
of the Rhone, their track marked by rapine and
desolation. The rapidity and suddenness of their
movements were appalling. They seemed to travel
on the wings of the wind. On a day they would be
heard of a hundred miles distant : in a moment the
plains would be black with the fiery little steeds and
their swarthy, light-armed riders, and field and barn,
village and town, would be consumed like stubble
before a raging fire. Now at Marseilles, now at
Aries, now at Lyons, their track was hideous with
ruined cities and churches and monasteries and
butchered Christian folk.

In 738 loussef Abdcrrahman, the defeated of
Poictiers, became master of Aries and of Avignon by
collusion with certain of the Provcn9al seigneurs, who

^ St. Gregory : lint. Franc, Book VI. 26.
^ Book VII. 40.

13

Avignon

hated the Saracens less than the Franks. Straightway
the bishops of Provence hastened to the Prankish
king who was warring against the Saxons, and be-
sought him to avenge Provenfal treachery and deliver
Christ's people from the yoke of the infidel. Charles
Martel at once despatched Duke Childebrand, his
brother, with a vanguard of Pranks and Burgundians,
himself following with the flower of his army. The
Saracens were well fortified at Avignon, a city,
mumtissimnm ac montuosam ;^ they defended themselves
bravely, but nothing could withstand the desperate
onslaught of the invincible Pranks. The infidel
stronghold was taken, and every Arab and renegade
Christian put to the sword ; the walls were razed,
and the city was left a smouldering ruin. This
done, Charles crossed the Rhone, fell upon a mighty
host of advancing Saracens at Narbonne and cut them
to pieces. Recalled to the Rhine, once again Charles
had to listen to piteous appeals from the south ; the
Saracens had retaken Avignon, fortified the Rock, and
all his work was undone. In the spring of 739, the
fair-haired warriors of the north were again seen on
the banks of the Rhone and, in two years, with the
help of the Lombards, the Cross was again victorious
over the Crescent, although the final deliverance was
not effected until the victory of Pepin the Short in
759. The Pranks were now masters of Provence,
and Avignon received a Prankish garrison.

1 Fredegarius : Hnt. Franc, Book XI. 109.

H

CHAPTER III

THE COUNTS OF PROVENCE REPUBLIC OK AVIGNON

BUILDING OF THE GREAT BRIDGE

At the Treaty of Verdun (843), when the vast
heritage of Charlemagne was parcelled out among
the three sons of Louis the Debonnair, Dauphigny,
Provence and the Transrhonian lands, with the empty
title of Emperor, fell to the share of Lothaire ; a
tripartite empery of Gallo-Frank, German and Italian
princedoms was rent asunder for ever ; Charles the
Bald was thrust behind the boundaries of the Scheldt,
the Mcuse and the Rhone, and the dawn of the realm
of France is seen in history. In the South, the Rhone
became the dividing line between realm and empire ;
from that day forth, the boatman was to know the ports
on its banks as in the Regni or the Emperi, and
even down to our own time the cries have survived ot
Re'iaume ! Emperi ! as the helmsman steered for the
western or eastern shores of the Rhone. ^

The fortunes of Avignon during the disintegration
of the empire were intimately involved in those
of the counts and dukes of Toulouse, Provence,
Forcalquicr, and others of the great feudal lords who
by their military genius carved out for themselves
rich seigneuries from its wreck ; for in the universal
chaos the sword of power was to him who could

^ H. Martin: Histoite de France, III. 74. Mistral: Lou
Poemo dbu Rose, 339.

15

Avignon

wield it. Under the fostering care of the Christian
prelates and jurists a new social order was slowly
emerging, and the victims of misrule clung around
the mighty and dominant lords whose strongholds
offered a rallying-point and a defence in the common
peril. Lust of power, family feuds, love of adventure
involve Provenfal history in a tangle of cross purposes
and unedifying wars. Fold b'len des tenebres et des
mauva'is pas, complains Nostradamus, the historian of
Provence ; but the incidents of the rise and fall of
these feudal lords, the clash of peoples and the muta-
bilities of their fortunes, need not detain us long :
they were but the growing pains of the new social
order.

A few outstanding figures, however, demand brief
notice. Charles, youngest son of Lothaire, who
assumed the title of King of Provence, justified in
860 his regal office by defeating the northern pirates
who were devastating the Rhone Valley. In 879,
when the terrible Danes were seen again, a synod of
twenty-three bishops offered the crown of Provence
to Duke Boson, and besought him to deliver the
land from the fury of the Northmen.

Duke Boson was forced to vindicate his new-
sovereignty both from the ravages of the pirates and
from the attacks of the degenerate heirs of Charle-
magne and the defence of Vienne, by his consort,
Princess Ermengarde, daughter of the Emperor
Louis II, against the army of Charles the Fat ; her
successful elevation of her son Louis, with the support
of the bishops, into his father's seat is among the
most thrilling stories of feminine valour and states-
manship. The young Louis justified the confidence
of his episcopal electors and won the affection of his
subjects ; but the lure of a Transalpine kingdom in

16

The Counts of Provence

Italy wrought his destruction, and the falling sceptre
of Provence was snatched by Count Hugh, his chief
minister and regent, who, by a crushing defeat of the
savage Hungarian invaders near Avignon in 926,
made good his title to sovereignty. Hugh never
assumed a higher title than Duke, or Count, of
Provence, and he too won a realm in Italy, wore
the crown of Lombardy, fell to naught, and ended
his days in a monastery.

In 970 Pope John XIII called for a deliverer who
should exterminate the Saracen pirates that were
making a wilderness of southern Provence. William I,
Count of Provence, in conjunction with Rothbold
his brother, answered the call, and by a brilliant
campaign cut the infidel host to pieces. For twenty
years William I ruled in peace, the beloved father of
a prosperous people, and at his death in 992 was
succeeded by his son, William II, who shared the
lordship of Provence with his uncle Rothbold. The
dual regime of uncle and nephew was broken in 10 1 8
by William's death at Avignon, when the heritage
of half Provence fell to his sons, Geoffrey and
Bertrand, Counts of Forcalquier and Avignon. At
the decease of Rothbold, without direct heirs, his
moiety of the patrimony of Provence passed to his
nephews Pons and Bertrand, sons of Count Taillefer
of Toulouse.

In 1078 Raymond, Count of St. Gilles, and
second son of Pons, married his cousin, the only
daughter and sole heiress of Bertrand of Toulouse.
Having thus united the family inheritance, Raymond
assumed the title of Marquis of Provence and, after
his wife's early death, contracted a second marriage
with Matilda, daughter of Count Roger of Sicily,
thus allying Jiis fortunes with those of that powerful

c 17

Avignon

Norman house. Meanwhile Raymond's elder brother,
William, succeeding to the countship of Toulouse,
had died without male issue ; and Raymond, inheriting
the title, became Marquis of Provence, Count of
Toulouse, and one of the mightiest feudal lords in
Christendom: a third marriage in 1094 with a
daughter of Alphonso, King of Aragon, associated yet
another potent family with his interests. But to
these connubial and inherited claims to lordship,
Raymond added a claim yet greater in those stormy
times — that of military genius and prudent states-
manship. In the ensuing year. Pope Urban II was
preaching the Holy War in France, when Raymond,
fired with crusading zeal, led a powerful and vic-
torious army of Proven9al nobles to the Holy Land,
modestly declined the proffered crown of Jerusalem,
and in 1105 died a soldier's death at Tripoli : his
son Bertrand took up the heritage of the Cross, set
forth with another army and won Tripoli.

A generation passes away and new claimants to the
lordship of the South enter the field. After a period
of internecine war, Alphonso, Count of Toulouse —
Bertrand's brother and heir — and Raymond Berengar,
Count of Barcelona, who as descendants respectively
of William II and Rothbold united in their persons
the whole inheritance, determined in 1125 to make
an end of family discord by dividing up their heri-
tage. To Alphonso was awarded the lands comprised
between the Isere and the Durance : to Raymond
Berengar those from the Durance to the sea. But
since the existing Counts of Forcalquier and Avignon
had certain prior claims, Raymond reserved to himself
one-half of the city of Avignon and some neigh-
bouring chateaux which were comprised in the
territory ceded to Alphonso, in order formally to

18

The Counts of Provence

invest the Counts of Forcalquicr and Avignon vvitli
their nominal possession. Thus, in process of time,
came Avignon under the dual lordship of the great
houses of Provence and Toulouse.

The latter half of the twelfth and the early years of
the thirteenth centuries were the golden age of the
Proven9al poets. Those famed singers became the
glory of the courts of princes, and not a little of
the diplomatic success of the Count of Toulouse at
Turin in 1162 was due to the emperor's delight
in the poems and songs of the Troubadours that
cultured prince brought in his train. Of the famous
Courts of Love, Adelais, Countess of Forcalquier and
Avignon, was in her day the chief ornament. In
her person, if we may believe her biographers, this
noble lady united all those qualities of mental charm
and physical beauty the Troubadours most delighted
to sing ; and in the delicate questions of love and
gallantry ; in the amorous disputes between knights
and dames that came before the Courts over which
she presided, her discretion and wisdom were never
appealed to in vain. Refinement of spirit, seemliness,
unerring judgment in the subtle and complicated
forms of Proven9al poetry, made Adelais of Avignon
the arbiter of good taste and poetic fame and banished
all licence from her presence : the productions of her
muse, copied and presented to her friends and to
foreign princes, were cherished as the highest of
earthly gifts.

The city of Avignon during the period when the
lords of the South were fighting for the hegemony
of Provence had attained a high degree of civic
freedom. The magistrates, by a skilful interplay of
interests, succeeded in winning a practical inde-
pendence and elevating their government to a

Avignon

free republic under the suzerainty of the empire.
Neither of the two counts would undertake the cost
of enforcing his feudal rights nor co-operate with
his rival in a common act of assertion. In 1206
William, Count of Forcalquier and Avignon, con-
firmed before the bishop, the consuls and the
magistrates of the city, the charter of a free com-
mune granted seventy years before by his ancestor,
whereby the bishop and the consuls were to continue
in the exercise of plenary powers and absolute juris-
diction over all the inhabitants of the city and its
territory, the city franchises and rights of all kind
were reaffirmed, and the charter of her liberties
subscribed.

The city had also rapidly advanced in prosperity
and new suburbs were built. In common with most
mediaeval republics she had a troubled history, and in
I 21 5 the Archbishop of Aix was invited to assist the
Bishop of Avignon in composing a fierce quarrel be-
tween the trade guilds and the nobles. A decade
passed, and after an incipient civil war it was decided
to imitate the Italian communes and to call in a
foreign podesta who, as chief magistrate, would hold
even justice between conflicting interests and admin-
ister the laws impartially. The podesta was to be
elected annually and the experiment tried for a
period of ten years. The new regime, with a
temporary interruption in 1229, lasted until 1251.
Indeed, so powerful had the republic grown that
in 1 2 10, complaint having been made of outrages
perpetrated by the inhabitants of St. Andre across
the Rhone, on the peaceful citizens of Avignon, the
abbot and monks of that ancient Benedictine settle-
ment were made to swear, placing their hands on
the holy gospels before the bishop and consuls, to

Building of the Great Bridge

demolish their walls that harboured the brigands
and never to allow any wall — whether of stone, or
wood, or mud — to be erected, either by art, or fraud,
or wit ; to resist with all their might any who should
attempt to raise such walls and, if powerless to resist,
straightway to abandon their monastery and never
return until the walls were razed. Every inhabitant
of St. Andre above fourteen years of age was to
take oath of submission to the bishop and consuls of
Avignon as to a sovereign lord.

Meanwhile the republic had wrought a stupendous
work of pontifical construction, which greatly en-
hanced her civic reputation and brought wealth and
commerce in its train, for in i l88 a task, which even
the Roman builders had not dared to attempt, was
achieved by a medixval ecclesiastic : a work of such
magnitude that nothing less than Divine interposi-
tion could explain its success in the minds of pious
chroniclers.

Let the story be told as it is written in Provcn9al,
by order of Friar Raymond of the Bridge, and sealed
by the pontifical Rectors —

Now in the year of grace I 177, after the death of
Bishop Raymond, St. Benezet came to Avignon and
miraculously built the bridge over the Rhone, whose
history is no less true than miraculous, although some
have doubted thereof, notwithstanding the testimony of
the Holy Fathers and many grave authors. ^ On a day
when the sun was ciarkened,a young child named Bene-
zet, while watching his mother's sheep in the fields,
heard a voice from heaven saying thrice ; " Ficou mieou,
aus la z'os dc Jesu Christ.'''' " And who art thou, Senor,

Francois NouGuiER : Hisfoire Chronologijuc tie I'Eglisc, Eirs'jues
et Arche-vcsqucs d' Avignon, 1659.

Avignon

that speakest," said the lad, " for I hear but see thee
not ? " " Fear not, Little Benet," said the voice, " I
am Jesus Christ, that alone have created the heavens
and the earth and the sea and all that therein is."
" Senor," asked the child, "what vvouldst thou?"
" I will," answered the voice, " that thou leave thy
sheep, for thou shalt make me a bridge over the
River Rhone." " Scnor," said the child, " the
Rhone I know not and my mother's sheep I dare not
leave." " Be of good heart," said the voice, " for I
will have thy sheep watched and will give thee a
companion that shall lead thee to the Rhone."
" Senor," continued the child, " naught have I save
three farthings ; how, then, shall I build a bridge over
the Rhone ?" "Little Benet," answered the voice,
" even as I shall show thee."

And Little Benet then set forth, obeying the voice
of Jesus Christ, and encountered an angel in the
similitude of a pilgrim, with staff" and wallet, who
said to him : " Follow me, and I will lead thee
to the place where thou shalt build the bridge
of Jesus, and I will show thee what thou shalt
do." Anon they came to the bank of the river,
and Little Benet, beholding the mighty stream with
great fear, said that in nowise could a bridge be
built there. And the angel said : " Fear not, for
the Holy Spirit is within thee ; pass over to the city
of Avignon and show thee to the bishop and to the
townsfolk." This said, the angel vanished from his
sight. Then Little Benet went to the ferry and
besought the ferryman, for love of God and of Our
Lady Holy Mary, that he would carry him over to
the city, for he had business there. " Nay," an-
swered the ferryman, that was a jew, " if I bear thee
across thou shalt give me three pence even as other

22

Avignon

folk do." Yet again did Little Benet entreat him,
for love of God and of Our Lady Holy Mary, that he
would pass him over ; but the jew answered : " What
reck I of thy Mary, for she hath no power in heaven
or on earth. I would rather have three pence than
thy Mary, for of Maries there are many." Then
Little Benet offered him the three farthings he had,
and the jew, seeing he could have naught else from
him, took them and ferried him over. Now Little
Benet entered the city of Avignon and sought
out the bishop, who was preaching to the people,
and said to him in a loud voice : " Stay, give ear
to my words, for Jesus Christ hath sent me to
you to the end that I build a bridge over the
Rhone." The bishop, hearing these words and
holding him for a mocker, bade lead him to the
provost of the city that he should be chastised and have
hands and feet cut off as a vile knave. And Little
Benet said gently to the provost : " My Lord Jesus
Christ hath sent me to this city that I should build a
bridge over the Rhone." And the provost, too,
reviled him, saying : " Thou base varlet that hast
naught, and yet pratest of building a bridge, when
neither God, nor St. Peter, nor St. Paul, nor Great
Charles the emperor, nor any man, hath been able to
build it. But, since I know right well that a bridge
must be built of stone and lime, I will give thee a
stone that I have at my palace, and if thou canst move
it and carry it away, I will believe thou canst build the
bridge." Then Little Benet, putting his trust in Our
Lord, returned to the bishop and related to him
what he was called upon to do. " Go," said the
bishop, " and we will behold the marvels thou pratest
of" And the bishop and all the townsfolk followed
him to the provost's palace, and Little Benet lifted up

24

Building of the Great Bridge

the stone, that full thirty men could not have moved
Irom the place where it lay, as easily as were it a
small pebble and carried it away and laid it down for
the foundation stone of the bridge ; and all folk
when they beheld it celebrated the great marvel and
said that mighty was Our Lord in all His works.
Then did the provost kneel before him, calling him
Saint Benezet, and kissed his hands and his feet
and cast down before him 300 pieces of silver, and
on that same spot full 5000 pieces were given.
Dearly beloved brethren, ends the chronicler, ye
have heard in what manner the bridge was begun,
wherefore ye have all become participants in that
great benefit ; and God wrought many miracles on
that day, for the blind were made to see, the deaf to
hear, anci the crooked were made straight, and there
were numbered eighteen of them.

Historically. Little Benet, thus called to distinguish
him from his greater namesake of the sixth century,
appears to have been the chief of a community of Friars
Hospitallers founded at Maupas, near Avignon, in
I I 64 to establish ferries, build bridges, and give hos-
pitality to travellers along the rivers of Provence.
His work accomplished in eleven years, St. Benet the
Less founded a branch of the Order at Avignon to
watch over and repair the bridge. St. Benezet also
built the bridge chapel of St. Nicholas, which endures
to this day, and established a hospital for the recep-
tion of poor travellers near by. Now, since the Pont
St. Benezet was the only stone bridge between Lyons
and the sea, until the building of the Pont St. Esprit
in 1309, the importance it conferred on Avignon
may easily be conceived. The counts of Toulouse
lavished privileges on the Friars Pontifls ; popes

25

Avignon

offered Indulgences, emperors and kings privileges,
to all who should contribute by money or labour to
maintain it in repair. Soon every road converged on
the bridge of Avignon, and even to this day at Nimes,
Aix, Vienne, and many another city of the South, a
Porte or a Chemin d'Avignon testifies to its former
importance.

26

CHAPTER IV

THE ALBIGENSES SIEGE OF AVIGNON BY LOUIS VIII

END OF THE REPUBLIC OF AVIGNON

But evil days were in store for the proud republic
of Avignon and the fair lands of the South. In 1 1 6 5
a council was held under the presidency of the Arch-
bishop of Narbonne at the little town of Lombers,
near Albi, to try certain sectaries known as the Boni
homines, who were accused of heresy : the " Good
Men " were convicted and ordered to return to the
unity of the Church ; and since the Latin form of
Albi was Albigesium, the term Albigenses became
applied to these and other sectaries. The Poor Men
of Lyons, the Waldenses, the Cathari, revivals of the
smouldering Arian and Manichaean heresiesof southern
Gaul, rapidly assumed alarming proportions, and
neither the preaching nor the miracles of St. Bernard
availed to stem the tide of advancing schism. The
social atmosphere, the culture, the intellectual freedom,
the wealth and luxury of Provence ; the artistic and
emotional temperament of the Proven9al race and
their intimate relation with Arab and Jewish thought,
formed a fertile soil whereon the seeds of heresy
rapidly germinated. The vices, too, of the southern
ecclesiastics, many of whom had lost all moral influ-
ence over the people, formed a striking contrast with
the simple lives and austere characters of the sectaries,
and helped not a little to foster that " inconceivable

27

Avignon

obstinacy " which the zealous Catholic Missionaries
never ceased to deplore in their letters to Rome.
Daring attacks on the prelates and clergy were made
by the Troubadours. The ignorance of the secular
clergy ; the luxurious lives of the prelates, their
femiiics blanches, their rich apparel, their red wine and
the wealth of those who styled themselves servants of
a God that chose to live a life of poverty, became the
commonplaces of popular ballads.

In I 183 a decree of Pope Lucius III opened the
era of the Inquisition. To make an end of manifold
heresies and suppress the insolence of the Cathari, the
Patarini, and those who falsely call themselves the
Poor Men of Lyons, all such were laid under per-
petual anathema. " Supported by the power and
presence of our most dear son, Frederick, Emperor of
the Romans, semper Augustus, and with the Common
Consent of the Patriarchs and Archbishops," various
enactments were made : every Archbishop or Bishop,
either himself or by deputy, was to search out once or
twice a year the heretics in his diocese, calling upon
three or more persons of good credit, or even on a
whole neighbourhood, to denounce on oath any
person known to them as a heretic, or any who held
secret conventicles, or differed In life or manners
from the common conversation of the faithful.
These were to be charged, and if, being convicted,
they refused to abjure their errors, such pests were to
be left to the discretion of the secular power for
punishment ; lapsed heretics were to be forthwith
handed to secular judgment and their goods confis-
cated to the Church. Consuls of cities, counts,
barons and all secular lords were to be bound by
oath stoutly and effectually to aid the Church, if
called upon to do so, and execute the ecclesiastical

28

T'he Alhigenses

statutes on pain of personal excommunication and an
interdict on their lands. Any city that resisted these
ordinances when called on by the bishop was to be
cut off from all intercourse with other cities. The
provisions of this decree having remained almost a
dead letter, in 1207 they were made more stringent :
informers were bribed by the promises of a fourth part
of the confiscated goods of the heretics ; and the house
wherein a heretic had been received was to be utterly
destroyed as a den of Iniquity and receptacle of filth.
In I 198 the great Innocent III had despatched
two Cistercian monks on a mission of extirpation : to
tliese, other two, and yet again ten more, were soon
added, armed with extraordinary powers. But the
situation growing even more desperate, the implacable
and fiery Arnaud Amauri, Abbot of Abbots, himself
set forth from Citcaux to spur on the missionaries to
greater efforts. In I 206 they were joined by a ragged
and shoeless Spanish enthusiast named Dominic, later
known to fame as the saintly founder of the Friars
Preachers. Little headway was made, for it would
appear that many of the prelates were either negli-
gent, or slothful, or even tender towards the heretics,
and that Raymond \'I of Toulouse, " the greatest
Count of all the world, liaving fourteen Counts under
him," secretly favoured the sectaries. In January i 208
Pierre de Castelnau, one of the papal legates, having
deposed the lukewarm bishops and twice excommuni-
cated the count, was foully done to death as he was
about to cross the Rhone. Suspicion fell on Raymond,
and Innocent, alarmed at the turn events had taken,
reiterated his call on King Philip of France and the
Catholic lords of Europe to avenge his slaughtered
legate and lead a crusade against heretics, who were
worse than Saracens. Philip, who had been laid under

29

Avignon

Interdict eight years before on his repudiation of his
queen, temporized, and the Duke of Burgundy and
Simon de Montfort responded to the call. To reli-
gious fanaticism was added the lure of personal gain.
Innocent offered all the lands and castles captured
from the heretics as a prey ; he released crusading
vassals from their oaths of fealty and debtors from
bonds to pay Interest to proscribed lords, for " no
faith need be kept with those who were faithless to
God " ; crusaders under the ban of the Church he
absolved. There was, however, another and more
material cause of complaint against Raymond. The
counts of Toulouse in their civil and dynastic wars
had employed mercenary soldiers, known as Roiitlers,
recruited from the scum of Europe — the precursors
of the dread Companions of whom we shall hear in
the sequel of this story. These, when professional
employment filled, ravaged the country, robbing,
pillaging, slaying or holding to ransom the peaceful
inhabitants, and especially glutting their lust for
plunder on the monastic or ecclesiastic foundations.
At every attempt to come to an understanding or a
peace with Raymond the legates exacted from him a
promise to send these brigands out of the country and
to police the public highways. It was to prevent a
recurrence of these evils that the legate in 1208
ordered the consuls of Avignon to destroy the
Chateau of Sorgues which they held in fief from the
Count of Toulouse. Crowds of knights and adven-
turers gathered round the crusading standard and
soon a vast army was descending the valley of the
Rhone to Avignon on its avenging mission. Raymond
bent before the storm, promised to amend his ways,
and, having given material pledges and done penance,
received formal absolution. A memorable scene was

30

The Albigenses

enacted in the vestibule of the church of St. Gilles at
V'alence. The mightiest lord in the west. Count of
Toulouse, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Pro-
vence, was made to kneel, naked to the waist, and
swear before a temporary altar whereon lay the holy
sacrament and a piece of the true cross, to carry out
the act of submission with all its humiliating con-
ditions. This done, the legate looped a stole round
the penitent's neck and, lest he were defiled by the
touch of a heretic, took hold of the two ends and led
the count over the threshold of the church, scourg-
ing him meanwhile with a bundle of rods. Then
Raymond was finally assoiled and the ban removed :
as he left the sacred building he was conducted past
the tomb of the murdered Pierre de Castelnau. On
the morrow the consuls of Avignon swore to hold the
prince to his promise of fidelity to the Church ; to
search out and confiscate the possessions of all heretics
in their city and territory. Raymond took the cross
and joined the Catholic host with rancour in his
heart. The disorganized Albigenses were powerless
against the fierce valour and discipline of the northern
knights and the hideous carnage at the sack of Beziers,
where thousands of men, women and children were
butchered ; the treacherous occupation of Carcassonne
and other victories carried terror and desolation into
the south (1209). There was, however, nothing
exceptional in the fate of Beziers. It was in accord
with the savage military customs of the time, and
similar atrocities were perpetrated by the order of
that very "parfait" knight, Edward the Black Prince,
as we shall presently learn.

The veteran crusader Simon, Count of Montfort
and Leicester, was thenceforth regarded as the
Maccabaeus of the Catholic forces, and given the

31

Avignon

confiscated viscounties of Bcziers, Carcassonne and
Rasaz. Innocent, delighted at the issue of the
campaign, congratulated the count, confirmed him
in the possession of the forfeited territory, and
awarded him all future conquests.

Of the relapse of Raymond, his alliance with the
chivalrous and ill-fated Pedro II of Aragon ; the
decisive victory of Muret (12 I 3), and the temporary
subjection of the South, space forbids us to treat in
detail. Raymond appealed eloquently, but vainly,
against the confiscation of his captured lands, at the
Lateran Council of 121 5 ; but Innocent was implac-
able. The victorious pontiff banished Raymond
from his patrimony, and allowed him a pension of
4.00 marks so long as he proved submissive to Holy
Church ; but, since his territories on the left of the
Rhone had not been conquered. Innocent appointed
Catholic regents over the County Venaissin until the
young Raymond, his son, came of age.

Innocent and Montfort fondly imagined the war
was ended, but the enthusiastic welcome given to the
two Raymonds at Marseilles and Avignon on their
return from Rome, was an ominous portent of future
trouble. The citizens of Avignon offered them an
army and their wealth : the whole population came
forth to acclaim the dispossessed counts with cries of
Vive Toulouse, le Comte Raymond et son fils I After
a conference with the podesta, Raymond determined
to join forces with the Marseillais and fight for the
recovery of his heritage. Toulouse rose, the whole
South turned on their spoilers, prescribed nobles
issued from their hiding places, Montfort was
defeated at Beaucaire, and in 12 18 a stone from a
mangonel, launched, says the chronicler,^ by women

1 Chanson de la Crohade.
32

T'hc Alhigenses

and young girls, dashed out the Catliolic champion's
brains and laid him, black and bloody, on the
ground. Meanwhile Innocent the Great, the stupor
mund'i, had gone to his account, and Honorius III,
his successor, launched the inevitable anathema
against the Avignonnais, calling on Philip of France
and all the faithful to fall on their city and on
Toulouse. But the citizens of Avignon stood firm to
their allies ; they captured the Prince of Orange and
flayed him alive — a savage act of reprisal which
Honorius made the most of.

The elder Raymond having died in 1222, the
pope denied him Christian burial, and the younger
Raymond succeeded to the heritage of revolt. A year
passed, Philip of France died, and Louis \\\\ reigned
in his stead. After many attempts at reconciliation
the papal legate. Cardinal St. Angelo, banned Ray-
mond VII and published a second crusade, Honorius
entreating Louis, who had already proved his Catholic
zeal by fighting against the Albigenses, to offer the
firstfruits of his reign to God and lead the Holy War.
He promised a large subsidy from ecclesiastical revenues
and the heritage of the South as a gift to the realm
of France. Dominican Friars preached the crusade
through the length and breadth of France, " and
soon a magnificent and invincible host of 50,000
horse, and footmen innumerable," says Matthew
Paris, "was advancing on Avignon in terrible array
with banners unfurled and bucklers flashing in the
sun." The bias of historians has left conflicting records
of what followed. The terror-stricken Avignonnais,
so the story runs, besought pardon and absolution of
Louis and the legate, and offered free passage through
their city and over their bridges. But when the
army reached the walls on June 6, 1226, the citizens

D 3 3

Avignon

were foresworn ; they closed their gates, confiscated
the provisions that had been purchased for the crusa-
ders in their city, and fell upon and slew stragglers
from the French camp. The king and the legate
alone would they suffer to pass their gates : the army
must gain the bridge by the narrow strip of shore
under the walls. The infuriated legate then called
upon the crusaders to purge the city of heresy and
avenge the insult offered to their king ; a final sum-
mons was made and the assault began. Another
version runs, that the podesta offered the passage of
the bridge to the king, the legate and loo knights ;
the bulk of the army to cross by a wooden pontoon.
The vanguard having thus passed, Louis, on his
arrival, angrily refused to cross with the main army,
and demanded passage through the city, lance on
thigh. The podesta, remembering the treachery of
Carcassonne and the perilous dictum that no faith
need be kept with heretics, shut the gates, and the
siege began.

The following story by the chronicler, William
of Puylaurens, chaplain to Raymond, is probably the
least open to suspicion : " The year of our Lord
1226, in the spring-time, when kings are wont to
go forth to battle. King Louis, blessed of God, after
taking the Cross, assembled a mighty army, and with
the legate, who never left him, descended the Rhone.
All the consuls of the cities that held for the Count
of Toulouse brought Louis their keys, and even
they of Avignon came before him to offer their
obeisance and their keys. But, being arrived at
Avignon on the eve of Pentecost, and after a part of
the army had passed over the bridge, the citizens,
fearing pillage by the soldiers if they entered in any
large numbers, or God willing it so, closed the gates

34

Skgt' of Avig?w?i

against them." Whatever happened it is clear that
the legate had determined to inflict exemplary chas-
tisement on the heretical city which for ten years
liad lain under the ban of the Church ; and Louis,
for strategical reasons, could not afford to leave
Avignon in his rear, unreduced, before he crossed
the Rhone on his march to Toulouse.

The king believed he had an easy task before him,
and that a comparatively small city could not long hold
out against a host miglitier fir than that which had
won the memorable victory of Bouvines. The event
proved otherwise. The citizens had built a second
girdle of ramparts and fosses ; they were supplied
with artillery and provisions, and for three long
months the fortress built upon a rock defied the
power of France. Disease, famine, a plague of
poisonous black flies that fed on the festering cor-
ruption of the dead and infected the living ; the col-
lapse of a bridge ; the incessant sorties of the garrison ;
the loss of the Count of St. Paul and of the Bishop
(jf Limoges, who fell fighting at the walls; the defec-
tion of Count Thibault, — at length disposed the legate
to listen to an offer of capitulation. Avignon escaped
the fate of Bcziers ; and after having given 200 of
her chief citizens as hostages, filled up the fosses and
razed part of her walls, the legate removed the ban
and deferred final punishment. This done, Louis
refreshed the remainder of his army, crossed the
bridge into Languedoc, and laid siege to Toulouse.
But although the Avignonnais had not saved their
city they, for a time, saved Toulouse. The season
when kings are wont to go forth to war drew to a
close : the siege was raised, and Louis, stricken with
mortal sickness, left the walls of Toulouse never to
return. On January 6, 1227, the cardinal-legate
» 2 35

Avignon

published his deferred sentence on the citizens ot
Avignon. They were to abandon the Count ot
Toulouse and all his allies ; to expel all heretics, and
to destroy the houses and confiscate the property of
any who harboured them ; no podesta or consul
must be elected without the approval of the legate's
deputy. Their walls and towers, both outside and
in, were to be utterly razed ; 300 houses, designated
by the cardinal, to be destroyed ; thirty well-armed
men to be sent to the Holy Land and maintained
there in the service of Jesus Christ for one year. An
indemnity of 1000 marks of silver was to be paid to
the Church ; 6000 marks to be contributed to the
expenses of the campaign against the heretics, from
which contribution all those who had been obedient
to the Church were to be exempt. All their artillery,
cross-bows, armour and munitions of war were to be
surrendered to the King of France. They were to
pay all tithes in full, and to maintain a professor of
theology in their city. Such were the chief clauses
of this drastic chastisement, which was inflicted to the
letter. The city finances were crippled by the debt
incurred to meet the indemnities, and in the civic
annals, for many a generation, reference is made to
the year when the Lord King of France captured
Avignon.

The abortive siege of Toulouse raised for a time
the hopes of the South ; but Raymond was kicking
against the pricks. Along the ages, from the time
when Louis V^I, the Great Justicier, hewed his way
sword in hand through the Capetian domains, sub-
duing rebellious vassals, to the day when the little
band of Jacobins, raising their rallying and victorious
cry. La Republique tme et md'wisible, overthrew the
Girondin Federalists, the passion for unity has ever

36

Sii'gt' of Avignon

been the informing principle of Frcncii history. The
spirit of the age was making for order through
unity; heresy was an anti-social movement, a political
and religious solvent ; and monarchy and papacy
were the progressive forces of the time. The Albi-
genses, like the philosophic anarchists of to-day, were
individually men of blameless lives. Mr. Maitland,
when analyzing the 932 sentences pronounced by the
Inquisition of Toulouse between 1307 and 1323,
found that in no one case did the Inquisitor directly
or indirectly impeach the moral character of any
Albigcnsian or Waldcnsian, and their industry, their
humility, their enthusiasm are admitted by their
Catholic persecutors. But their doctrines were retro-
gressive ; they were harmless folk, but their teaching
was not harmless in its results ; and the doctrine ot
cndura, or heretication, whereby the pcrfccti ensured
their salvation by voluntary starvation, or bleeding,
or deadly potions,^ would be a pernicious one under
any social polity. The enci was not far. During
the regency of Blanche of Castile, Raymond and
the Toulousians, menaceci by famine, gave up the
unequal contest, and by the Peace of Paris (1229)
the northern monarchy absorbed the viscounties of
Nimes, Bcziers and Carcassonne.

On Holy Thursday of 1229, another triumph
of the Catholic Church over the heretical house ot
Toulouse was celebrated, when the last of its great
counts and the most powerful feudatory of western
Europe — whose possessions were once greater than
tliose of the Crown of France — stood barefoot, a
shivering penitent before the portal of Notre Dame
in Paris ; and, having craved absolution, was led

' See Maitland : Facts and Documcnn ilhntrati'vc of the Albi-
gcmci and Waldenus. 1832.

37

Avignon

to the high altar by the papal legate through a
multitude of spectators, the witnesses of his humilia-
tion, and finally released from the ban of the Church.
Raymond's penance was a heavy one : he swore to
pursue heresy with the utmost rigour ; to offer
rewards for the capture and conviction of heretics ;
to pay a large indemnity to the Church ; to appoint
Catholics and not Jews to public offices ; to find
4000 marks for the establishment of two chairs of
theology, two of canon law and six of the liberal
arts at Toulouse ; to take on a crusader's badge and
sail for the Holy Land within two years in order to
serve for five years against the infidels. His daughter,
Joan, was to be given in marriage to one of the
king's brothers, and, in the event of no issue from the
alliance, the whole of the Toulousian heritage was to
fall to the Crown of France ; the County Venaissin
was to be ceded absolutely and in perpetuity to
Rome. Joan of Toulouse was thereupon affianced to
St. Louis's brother Alphonso, Count of Poictiers, each
being nine years of age.

At the capture of Avignon, Raymond Berengar,
Count of Provence, having allied himself with Louis
VIII, was confirmed in his sovereignty over the city.
His authority was but a shadowy one, for although
the citizens' walls were beaten down their courage
was high and they continued to act as a free com-
mune. Nor was the Count of Toulouse yet cowed.
During the long duel between the papacy and the
empire, Raymond Y\l allied himself with the great
Frederick, wrested the County Venaissin from the
pope, punished the Count of Provence for his alliance
with the king, and sought to get behind the Treaty
of Paris by a divorce and a new marriage, whereby he
hoped to raise up an heir to his estates, and thus

38

Siege of Avignon

exclude Alphonso and Joan from the succession. He
even intrigued for a marriage with Beatrice, heir-
ess of Provence, hut was outwitted by Raymond
Berengar's minister, Romieu of Villeneuve, who
succeeded in marrying her to St. Louis's brother,
Charles I of Anjou — an incident, or, rather, the
legend which grew around it, which gave rise to
one of the most pathetic cpisoclcs in the Dlvhia
Commedia}

During the stormy times of the wars of the In-
vestiture, the magistrates of Avignon, with their usual
astuteness, played oft' each of the contending forces
against the other, and in 1236 Raymonti of Toulouse
restored their franchises, the emperor promised pro-
tection, and authorized the commune to coin money.
But once again, in 124.7, a king of France and a vast
crusading host was marching down the valley of the
Rhone to the city of Avignon, with banners un-
furled and armour flashing in the sun — not against a
Christian folk, but on its way to Aignes Mortes for
the Holy Land — and the eyes of the citizens once
more turned with apprehension towards the north.
A fatal scufHc between some crusaders and a number
of Avignonnais, whom they derided as traitors, led
to angry scenes, and the northern seigneurs urged
St. Louis to fall on the defenceless city and avenge the
death of his royal father. But the generous Louis,
with characteristic magnanimity, refused, saying :
" I have taken the Cross to avenge the insults done to
Jesus Christ and not to myself or my father." Two
years later, when Raymond of Toulouse was called to
follow St. Louis to Palestine, his unquiet spirit had
at length woni out its corporeal tenement, and on Sep-
tember 27, 1249, the last of his house and heir to

' PdraJiso, VI. 127-142.

39

Avignon

four centuries of greatness, dragged himself, stricken
to death, from his bed : falling on his knees, the
champion of the Albigenses received, by a curious
irony of fate, the last sacrament from the hands of
the Bishop of Albi. When the news of Raymond's
death reached Palestine, Alphonso of Poictiers set
out for France and with Joan, his wife, took up the
heritage of Toulouse. The republic of Avignon
refused allegiance, but the Count of Poictiers and his
brother of Anjou were not to be trifled with ; a
powerful army marched on Avignon ; the city made
her submission, and in 1251 the republic of Avignon
was blotted out from the pages of history. In 127 1
— Alphonso and Joan having died without issue —
Philip III seized their vast inheritance, and a big
step forward was taken in the consolidation of the
French monarchy.

Provence and Languedoc hardly recovered from the
devastation wrought by the Albigensian wars. A
profound sadness fell on the people. Eclipsed were
the glowing life and spacious days of oki ; silent
the singers of love and chivalry, their lutes unstrung,
their sweet music turned to woeful lamentation.
Instead of the gaiety of Courts of Love, " magnifying
lovers' deare debate," instead of the rich apparel and
glittering jewels of fair ladies and the dazzling armour
of gallant knights, stern Inquisitors of Rome, pallid
friars clothed in sable, sat in Avignon and Toulouse
and dealt out death, imprisonment and penance to
cowering heretics. Lugubrious scenes were witnessed
in the streets of Avignon. Black-robed priests,
following a bier covered with a funereal pall, stood
before the houses of excommunicated heretics, took
hyssop in hand, and recited the office of the dead.
In 1 241 such was the lack of competent jurists,

40

Fjud of the Kc public of Avignon

owing to war, persecution antl civil strife, that the
judges were ordered to serve for two years instead ot
one.^

The magistrates of the republic had made the
best bargain they could with their new French
masters. By the Treaty of Bcaucaire, May 9, 125 i,
having acknowledged that they had unjustly resisted
the counts of Provence and Toulouse, and having
implored their grace, the citizens were declared exempt
from all existing tallies and tolls and no new tolls or
dues were to be imposed upon them ; they were to
have free markets ; they might render military
service to their friends, but not against the two
princes, their new masters ; once a year, for forty
days, they might make a cavalcade in the lands of the
empire twenty leagues beyond the city ; they lost
the exercise of High and Secondary justice, but they
maintained their good old customs and privileges, and
their lords could only imprison citizens without bail,
for heresy, homicide and other enormities. Alphonso
and Charles were to appoint a vicar (riguicr), with
two assessors, all of whom were to be foreigners, to
administer justice in their name without regard to
persons and according to the laws and customs of the
city. The viguier was to swear to extirpate heresy
from the city and to protect the temporal rights ot
the Church. In I 27 I the County Venaissin having
become by the Treaty of Paris the absolute possession
of the Holy See, the papal rector of the county in
temporal matters, Guillaume de Villaret, three years
later confirmed the franchises and privileges of
Avignon; and in 1290 Philip the Fair, having
ceded the Crown rights over the half of Avignon to

1 According to the old constitution of Avignon the podcsta
and judges were elected annually.

41

Avigfwn

Charles II of Anjou, Count of Provence and King
of Naples and Sicily/ that prince became sovereign
lord of Avignon.

1 Sicily had, however, been lost to the Angevin house by the
Sicilian Vespers in 1282.

TOWER OF PHILIP THE FAIR, VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON ]

CHAPTER V

THE PAPACY AT AVK.NON POPE CLEMENT V

In the early years of the fourteenth century, the
main stream of European history, unexpectedly swerv-
ing from its normal course, raised the little hill city
of Avignon into hieratic splendour and drew the
eyes of every potentate in Christendom to the banks
of the Rhone. Like so many critical and far-
reaching events in the lives of states, as well as in
those of individuals, the transference of the papacy
from Rome to Avignon was the result of no definite
or matured policy : the bark of Peter drifted rather
than was steered thither.

In 1303 Pope Boniface VIII, the indomitable
protagonist of papal claims to temporal as well as
spiritual dominion over kings and princes, had suf-
fered defeat and ignominy at Anagni at the hands
of Philip the Fair, and on July 27, 1304, the good
and righteous pope, Benedict XI, known in Italy as
the Angel of Peace, died suddenly at Perugia. The
story runs ^ that Benedict died of a dish of poisoned
figs brought to him by a youth, veiled and clothed
in the habit of a lay sister, as a present from the
Abbess of St. Petronilla. \'illani's scornful comment

' DiNo Campagm : Cron., Lib. III. p. 74 ; and Villani, Lib.
VIIL cap. 80. More probably his death was due to a surfeit of
new figs. LizF.RAND : Clement V ct Philippe //'. 1910.

43

Avignon

on this incident, which he regards as the obvious
result of the pope's folly in neglecting the orciinary
precaution of preliminary tasting by the proper officer,
throws a lurid light on the Italian courts of the time.
On June 5, 1305, after eleven months of obscure
intrigue and patent discord, Raymond of Goth, Arch-
bishop of Bordeaux, was elected to the papal chair,
and assumed the title of Clement V.

An irrefutable historical alibi forbids acceptance of
Villani's well-known and dramatic story of the secret
meeting, while the Conclave was sitting, between
Philip the Fair and Archbishop Raymond of Goth
in the forest near St. fean d'Angcly, where the wealth
of the Templars and the independence of the papacy
were bartered for the tiara, and a six- fold bargain im-
piously sworn over the very body of God on the altar,
and finally sealed with a kiss from the foul lips of
a regal ruffian and false-coiner who had humiliated
Christ's vicar at Anagni, and was now, in Dante's
words, to drag the Church like a shameless harlot
to do his will in France. But the story, although
untrue in fact, is not untrue in the impression it
conveys : in April 1305 three royal councillors were
despatched to Perugia by Philip (one of whom was
his banker) for the " good of the universal Church,"
and that the tiara was placed on Clement's brow by
collusion with the King of France is not open to
doubt. The Bonificians in the Conclave had in fact
been outwitted. Having at length agreed on a com-
promise with the French and Colonna factions they
were induced to accept a Transalpine pope on con-
dition that they nominateei three candidates, from
whom their opponents should select one. And since
the Archbishop of Bordeaux, being a Gascon, was
English in sympathies, and had supported Boniface

4+

Pope Clement V

in the contest with Philip, his name was placed first
on the list : he was ot course chosen by the French
and Colonna cardinals.

The choice of Lyons for the ceremony of en-
thronement gave tlie first warning of the deception
practised. Met at Montpellier by the kings of
Aragon and Majorca, and a host of counts and
barons and knights, the papal conclave, imperial in
its magnificence, was joined at Lyons by the King
of France and his brothers. Ikit unhappy auguries
attended the solemn coronation procession. On
November 14, 1305, Clement, superbly seated on a
fine white horse, and " looking ^ like King Solomon
wearing his diadem," his gilded bridle held succes-
sively by the King of France, Charles of Valois, and
the Duke of Brittany, paced through the streets of
L)-ons. As the head of the cortege was passing by
a portion of the old city walls, which were crowned
by a mass of spectators, a cry of horror rang through
the streets : the wall had crumbled and pope and
princes were envelopeci in a cloud of dust and falling
misonry. When the air cleared, the pontifFs horse
lay dead, himself prostrate, and the ill-bought tiara
shattered on the ground. Clement was but slightly
hurt, but his escort were less fortunate : Charles of
X'alois was gravely wounded ; the Duke of Brittany ;
Clement's brother, Gaillard de Goth ; Cardinal de
Ursins and twelve others lay among the dead ; many
were more or less injured. This awful calamity, and
subsequent drought and fiimine in the land, were
hailed by the Bonifacians as so many tokens of divine
wrath. So bitter was the enmity evoked that on the
occasion of the State dinner following Clement's first
pontifical mass, certain of the papal household and
' MuRATORi : Rer. Ital. Script., III. i. 673.

45

Avignon

some servants of the Italian cardinals came to blows
with fatal results.

The issue of the first Consistory on December 15,
removed all doubts as to the import of Clement's
election ; the Curia was packed with ten new
cardinals of whom nine were Gascons, or Limousins,
and all relatives or friends of the new pope ; the
ecclesiastical offices were filled with the same par-
tiality, and Philip peopled the vacant bishoprics with
his own creatures. The Bonifacians were furious,
but they were only paid In their own coin, for the
Conclave (1292-94) that elected Boniface VIII had
been composed of ten Italian and two French
cardinals.

Early in 1306, Philip demanded his reward.
Clement temporized : conferences with Philip at
Poictiers ; a year's sickness, not perhaps wholly
diplomatic ; an attempted escape to the English at
Bordeaux, only to be ignominiously haled back by
the king's officers- — all were in vain, and payment
of the unholy price was enforced. All the sentences
launched against Philip by Boniface and his suc-
cessor since November i, 1300, were expunged from
the papal records, and all existing copies destroyed ;
the French king was declared to have been actuated
by praiseworthy and righteous zeal in his conflict
with Boniface, and the Knights Templars were
abandoned to spoliation and martyrdom. Clement,
however, resolutely refused to listen to the last ot
Philip's demands — the posthumous condemnation
and excommunication of Boniface — and after much
wrangling a compromise was agreed upon : the royal
commissioners were to be allowed to indict, and the
Bonifacians to defend, the dead pontiff's memory
in full Consistory. A bribe of 100,000 florins paid

46

Pope Clement V

by Pliilip to the papal treasury had its effect in the
isusc of the contercnce and the removal of the
ban.

After many wanderings, the harassed Clement
bethought him of the papal County of Venaissin
beyond the Rhone, and it was agreed that pope and
cardinals should meet in the Dominican friary at
Avignon, on its borders, on the octave of the Epiphany
in the coming year, 1309. Ominous portents in the
heavens followed this momentous step : an eclipse of
the moon, whereby she became first bloody, then
black in hue, followed by snow and rain, ultra modum
et cunitm naturae. This fateful decision was the
beginning of Avignon's historic glory. As before to
the city of seven hills on the Tiber, so now to the
hill city on the Rhone, every road led, and soon a
constant procession of the great ones of the earth, or
their envoys, streamed to Avignon, to cieprecate the
ban or sue for the blessing of the \ icar of Christ on
earth : prelates and priests, jurists and clerks, waiters
on fortune of all kinds, flocked to the little city
where the vast patronage of the Christian world was
dispensed and the supreme ecclesiastical court of
Europe pronounced its irrevocable decrees. Scarce
was the Curia lodged at Avignon when a deputation
of noble Venetians came to appeal against the bull of
excommunication launched against the republic for
warring against Ferrara, only to be haughtily refused
an audience ; the ambassadors of the Kings of Castile
and Aragon followed, craving permission to take
tithes for the sinews of the holy war against the
Moors of Granada ; a solemn embassy from the
Genoese concerning their claim over the bishopric of
Lucca ; three counts of the empire and two bishops
seeking confirmation of the election of Henry of

47

Avignon

Luxembourg to the imperial crown and the kingship
of Rome — that alto Arr'igo, minister of God, in whom
was centred all Dante's hopes for the regeneration of
Italy ; Robert the Wise to receive from Clement's
hands the oil of consecration and the crowns of
Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily, and to do homage to
the high pontiff as his liege.

In September of the year 1309 there was seen on
the church doors at Avignon a papal citation to those
who sought to incriminate, and those who would
defend, the good memory of Boniface VIII to appear
before the pope in Consistory ; and in the spring of
the next year Philip's henchman, William of Nogaret,
author of the outrage at Anagni, strode insolently
into Avignon with an escort of armed knights to
prefer charges of blasphemy, infidelity, cynicism and
vice against the memory of the dead pontiff and to
demand that his body be disinterred and burned and
his ashes scattered to the winds. A crowd of dis-
reputable witnesses, gathered by Philip's agents from
all parts of Italy, trooped over the Alps under the
charge of Rinaldo di Supino, another of the Anagni
bullies. Boniface's memory was vigorously and ably
defended by Clement's advocates, and after futile and
half-hearted proceedings that lasted the greater part
of a year, Clement, with his usual astuteness, succeeded
in referring the trial to the forthcoming Council of
Vienne (1311-12) : there the matter was prac-
tically shelved and Boniface's memory escaped out-
rage. On May 5, 13 13, Clement enrolled among
the Blessed, Pope Celestin \ , who made the great
refusal, 1 and decreed that the new saint should be
Invoked as St. Peter the Confessor, he having been
known as Friar Peter before his elevation, " whereby,

' Dante : Inferno, III. 60.
48

Pope C/c?nc?7t V

it is seen that the said lord Clement ratified the
refusal, for he willed he should not be called
Celestin." '

Clement's last preoccupation was the redaction and
promulgation of the acts of the General Council at
N'ienne ; and after many labours, anxieties and tribu-
lations, say his biographers, he migrated to God on
April 20, I 3 14, at Roquemaure, in the territory of
King Philip, where he had been forced to interrupt
his intended journey to try the healing effect of the
air of his native Gascon}'. Clement was never well,
said his confessor, after the revision of the Constitution
of the Mendicant Friars.- So intent were the Gascons
who accompanied him on their own interests that
they cared little for Clement's mortal remains ; and as
the body lay neglected in the church, one of the tapers
that burned beside the bier fell during the night and
it was consumed from the girdle downwards. Such
was the miserable end of Clement V : his guilty
fellow-conspirator and hard task-master, Philip the
Fair, survived him but six months.

There is a bitter verse of Heine's wherein the
tyrant is bidden to remember Dante's Hell with its
terrible tcrzette, and to beware of the Hell of
poets, from w^hose singing flames no Saviour can
deliver him.^ Dante, in common with the Italians
of his day, never forgot and never forgave Clement's
perfidy at the Conclave of Perugia, and has branded
his memory with indelible infamy : in the third of

' Baluze : /7/if Paparuyyi A-ven., p. 51. I'>93.

- //'/</., p. 56. The revision of the Rule of the Franciscans
[^Exi'vi in ParadisOy May 6, 1312) was an attempt to compromise
between the Sf>ii ittiali, or rigid interpreters of St. Francis's rule,
and the Coiii'entua/i, as the friars who desired its relaxation were
called.

■* Deutschlund, Ein H'intermarchen, Kaput XXVII.

E , 49

Avignon

the Malebolge, the lawless pastor of the west, ot
uglier deeds than any of his papal predecessors in
simony, is prophetically fixed for all time, head-down-
wards, with flame-licked feet.^ Giovanni Villani,
Dante's contemporary, is equally bitter. "This was
a man," says the historian of Florence, " most greedy
for money and a simoniac. Every benefice was sold
in his court for money, and he was so lustful that he
openly kept a most beautiful woman, the Countess of
Perigord, for his mistress. He left a large and count-
less treasure to his nephew and kinsfolk, and it is
related that on the death of the cardinal, his nephew,
whom he dearly loved, Clement consulted a great
master necromancer to learn how it lared with the
dead cardinal's soul. A trusty chaplain of the pope
was, by the wizard's art, taken to Hell, and there a
devil showed him a bed of fire in a palace, whereon
the dead cardinal's soul lay a-burning for the sin of
simony. And opposite to this he beheld another
palace which the devil told him was preparing for
the soul of Clement." All this the chaplain reported
to the pope, " who never afterwards took any joy in
life." ~

A less partial survey of Clement's pontificate will,
however, give cause for a favourable estimate of his
diplomatic skill if not of his moral character. When
the subtle Gascon began his pontificate never had
the papacy fallen so low. The secular power, in the
person of Philip the Fair, had taken a savage and
memorable vengeance for the imperial penance of
Canossa. Philip had humbled in the dust the great
pope, Boniface VIII, who, like Zeus, was wont to
hurl from his holy throne ambitious mortals to per-

1 Inferno, XIX. 82-87.

^ Villani, Lib. IX. cap. 58.

50

Pope Clement V

dition; who liaJ arrogated to himself the position of
God's delegate over kings and kingdoms, to build
and destroy, to plant and to root up.^ The feeble
Edward 11 of England was his son-in-law, and the
house of Capet, with its collateral Angevin progeny,
occupied the thrones of France, Navarre, Hungary
and Naples ; the countships of Piedmont and of
Provence; the duchies of Taranto and Durazzo. Of
the Angevin princesses, one was Queen of Sicily,
another Queen of Majorca, a third Duchess of
Ferrara ; and, on the death of the Emperor Albert,
Philip's soaring ambition aimed at seating his brother,
Charles of \ alois, on the throne of the Holy Roman
Empire. This formidable aggrandizement of the
Capetian dynasty Clement succeeded in checkmating.
With masterly diplomacy he compassed the election
of Henry of Luxembourg, whom he had met at
Lyons and Poictiers, as emperor, after having bound
him to defend the person of the pope, the honour of
the Church, and all her patrimony since the days of
Constantine. Clement never cancelled, but only
promised to interpret fivourably to France, the
famous bull Uniim Sanctum (1302) which reasserted
the supremacy of popes over kings; that the sword
of the temporal power must be subordinate to the
service of the Church and wielded at the will of the
pops and at the nod of a priest ; which declared that
the subjection of every man to the Roman pontiff
was a doctrine necessary to salvation. He never
suffered Boniface's memory to be blasted ; he saved
western Europe from the hegemony of France ; dis-
posed of crowns, reconciled sovereigns and subjects,
governed whole countries by his legates, and brought
the \'enetian republic to her knees. Claiming suze-

' The bull Auicultd JUi.
K 2 51

Avignon

rainty over the empire after Henry's death he, as
overlord, removed the emperor's ban on Robert of
Naples, and appointed him papal vicar-general in
Italy. Clement was undoubtedly a worldly pontiff,
but he was tolerant to opinion and averse from perse-
cution. He might have taken the ^schylean precept,
" Learn to observe the naught-too-much in things
divine," as his guiding principle. By the bull Exiz'i ^
the tolerant pontiff held a moderating course between
the rival factions of the Franciscans, and stood
between the S/>irituali and the violence of their
Conventimli opponents in the order. " During his
reign," says Renan, "one might have suffered for
believing too much : never for having believed too
little." Clement was one of the earliest Transalpine
patrons of the Italian renaissance, and his love of the
arts is shown by the vast treasure of gold and silver
vessels, gems, antiques and manuscripts seized by his
nephew at his death. The student of the " Baby-
lonish Captivity " at Avignon has ever to be on his
guard against the passionate rhetoric of Italian parti-
sans. The Villani — Giovanni and Matteo— never
lose an opportunity of denigrating the memory of
the Gascon pontiffs, and, according to Petrarch, the
papal court at Avignon was the abode of monsters
battening on human blood ; instead of being fishers
of men the popes swam in pleasure and riches.
Avignon was a living hell, a sink of vice where the
moral sewage of Europe was poured forth ; there was
neither faith, nor charity, nor religion, nor fear of
God, nor shame, nor truth, nor holiness. The very
city itself was odious. In riipe horrida tristis sedet
Avenio ; disgusting when the wind raged, pes-

1 See HoLZAPFEL : Handhuch d. Gescliichte des Franc'ukaneror-
dens, § I I. I 909.
>2

FOR-IRAIT OF PETRARCH. Frovi MS. of Petrarcli's '' De Viris,
which belonged to Francesco da Carrara.

Via /ace p. 52.

Pope Clement V

tifcrous when it dropped.^ Provisions were said
to abound there, but the only abundance the poet
found was of filth and mire and wind. When he
descends to particulars the letters are untranslatable. -
Benvcnuto da Imola, commenting on a passage in
the Infcrno^^ remarks that he, too, would never have
believed that there were so many assassins, cut-throats,
brigands, robbers and scoundrels in the world as he
once saw in Avignon. Doubtless the moral atmo-
sphere was corrupt enough in a city swarming with
rich and celibate ecclesiastics, a city where the ambi-
tions, the patronage and the political intrigues of
Europe were centred. But the condition of Avignon
was certainly no worse than that of Rome herself.
At the Council of Vicnne the Bishop of Mcnde
recited an appalling indictment of the incredible
depravity and moral turpitude that disgraced the
Eternal City, and so far as the public peace and good
government were concerneci everything was in favour
of the Provenfal city. French annalists iterate their
complaints of the disastrous effects of the Italian inva-
sion of Avignon, bringing in its train, luxury, dis-
solute living, falsehooci, simony, poisonings, lechery,
and unspeakable Italian vices, corrupting an innocent
population of Arcadian simplicity. The truth is that
in the V^anity Fair of Europe there was little to
choose between Italian Row and French Row.

At the death of the Gascon pope, twenty-three
cardinals entered into conclave at Carpentras, the
capital of the papal county where Clement's remains

' A'vcnio "ventoia. Cum I'cnto fastidiosa. Sine •vcnio •venenosa.
- See Epistoli£ sine tifulo, especially XVI. : also the three savage
sonnets ad A-vignonc, cv, cvi, cvii.

•' Comcntum iuper Dantis coma-diam, I. p. 116. hifcrno, III.

55-57-

53

Avignon

found a temporary resting-place. After months of
wrangling between the Italian and French factions
the contest degenerated into a riot that left the
greater part of Carpentras a smoking ruin. The
discreet author of the third life of Clement V, in
Baluze,^ deems the incidents of the scuffle meeter to
be left in the pen than written down ; but the veil

.» fill" '

"^rri

A DOORWAY, CARPENTRAS. FORMERLY
ENTRAN'CE TO CARMELITE CONVENT.

thus cast over the unseemly proceedings is lifted for
us by an encyclical letter addressed from Valence on
September 8, 1 3 14, by the Italian cardinals to the
Chapter-General of the Cistercian Order. They were
in conclave, " seeking not their own ends, but the
will of God," when on July 24 the Gascons deliber-
ately fomented an attack on their servants by an
armed force of horse and foot under the command
of Bertrand de Goth, the late pope's brother, and
1 Vol. I. p. 61.

54

Pope Clement V

Raymond Guillcrmin liis nephew, who entered Car-
pentras on the pretext of escorting Clement's body
to Uzeste, his appointed burial-place. Italian mer-
chants were attacked, slain, their houses pillaged, and
in their fury the Gascons set fire to the mansions
where the Italian cardinals were lodgeci. Increasing
in number, the rioters attacked the episcopal palace
in order to terrorize the Conclave, shouting : "Death
to the Italian cardinals ! Give us a pope ! " They
then set fire to the palace, and the Italian cardinals,
fearing a base and cruel death, escaped by breaking
through the back wall of the building and flcci to
divers places of refuge throughout France.'

Earlier in the proceedings Cardinal Napolcone
Orsini, the Decan of the Conclave, wrote to Philip
the Fair, assuring him that, having the fear of God
before their eyes, and the salvation of souls, the
Italians had been willing to elect a French pope, the
Cardinal of Palestrina — a righteous and learned man,
and zealous for French interests — but, to their amaze-
ment, the Gascons rejected him for no apparent reason.'-'
In truth the conflicting interests of the Gascon,
French and Italian factions made compromise impos-
sible, despite Dante's eloquent and passionate appeal
to the cardinals for peace and concord. ^ Let us note
in passing that an onlooker at these scenes of violence
at Carpcntras was a precocious little lad, ten years of
age, one Francesco Petrarca, son of a fellow-exile
with Dante from Florence.

Ten years passed, Philip the Fair had gone to his
account, and Louis X reigned in his stead : but no
pope sat in Peter's chair. At length Louis bade his

' Raluze, Vol. II. pp. 286-2F9.
- Ihid., pp. 289-293.
» Epist. VIII.

55

Avignon

brother, Philip of Poictiers, essay a convocation of
the scattered cardinals. Mindful of what had hap-
pened at Perugia and at Carpentras, they agreed to
meet at Lyons if Philip bound himself by oath that
they should suffer no violence, nor be imprisoned in
conclave. Scarcely had they assembled when Louis's
death called Philip to the throne of France, and the
new king, impatient of delay, resolved to make an
end of the business. Complacent confessors having
assured him that his oath was unlawful and need not
be kept, Philip, "with subtle and gracious words,"
invited the cardinals to confer with him on the state
of Christendom at the Dominican friary, before his
departure for Paris. The conference over, the un-
suspecting cardinals, rising to go to their lodgings to
dine, found every issue beset with armed men, and
Philip sternly warned them they should not leave the
chamber until they had provided the Church with a
pope. On August 4, i 3 16, after a lapse of forty days,^
Jacques d'Euse, sometime Bishop of Avignon, was
chosen to fill the vacant see, and called himself
John XXIL The decisive factor had been the passage
of Napoleone Orsini to the French party.-

1 The cardinals, to relieve the tedium of long sittings, appa-
rently had their little jokes. At the Conclave that resulted in
the election of Gregory X one of the cardinals said jestingly :
" Hadn't we better uncover the building. The Holy Ghost can't
get through so thick a roof." See Muratori, HI. i. 597.

- Josef Axel : Die fVahl Johanns XXII.

56

CHAPTER VI

JOHN XXII THE BLACK ART WEALTH OF THE PAPAL

COURT A cardinal's HOARD

The new pontift owed his election to the influence
of the royal house of France, for he had steadfastly
supported Philip the Fair in his spoliation of the
Templars. Although in his seventy-second year, and
partly chosen for his advanced age, John proved to be
possessed of remarkable vigour and force of character.
His subtlety gave rise to a popular story that he
finally compassed his election by a promise to the
Roman cardinals never to mount horse or mule save
to journey to Rome ; and then, not to be foresworn,
dropped down the Rhone from Lyons in a boat,
entered the episcopal palace at Avignon on foot, and
never left it again save to cross to the cathedral.^
Villani informs us with his usual bias, that Jacques
d'Euse elected himself, and that he was a cobbler's
son ; - but, although not of noble birth, as some of
his apologists have sought to prove, he came of an
honourable and substantial middle-class family of
Cahors. Like Zacchxus, Jacques d'Euse was small
in stature, but he was great in the scholastic learning
of the day and a profound master of the canon law.
Feeble of voice, yet forceful in purpose, he was harsh
and inflexible to. any who crossed his path, and his

' Baluze, Vol. I. p. 178. - Lib. IX. ch. 79.

57

Avignon

austere habits and immense capacity for work made
him a formidable protagonist of Gallic interests.

John XXII was the first of the popes to contem-
plate a Transalpine seat at Avignon. Clement V, so far
from settling there, had, just before his death, decided
to remove the Curia to Bordeaux, and John, but for
the unhappy memory of the Conclave, would probably
have chosen Carpcntras for his court. There was
little to attract the Curia to Rome, where chaos
reigned supreme. The savage feud between Orsini
and Colonna had made the city of the Cxsars a hell
upon earth. Pilgrims were assassinateci and robbed
in her streets with impunity, and churches plundered ;
the better sort of citizens had themselves organized a
provisional government to maintain some degree of
civil life in the mercantile parts of the city. In the
vast girdle of her moss-grown walls, sinister towers and
embattlemented strongholds frowned over the terri-
tories the nobles had parcelled out for themselves ;
the Colosseum was a nest of brigands ; the Quirinal,
the Mausoleum of Augustus, the tomb of Caius Cestus,
were feudal castles impregnable, whence fierce nobles
issued with savage war-cries to assail their enemies.
The Campagna, the public roads, were the haunts of
robber barons, who swooped down from their eyries
to kill and plunder priest and layman, cardinal and
merchant. Italy, a very hostel of woe, was a cock-
pit where Guelph and Ghibelline, Bianchi and Neri,
rent each other in pieces, " her cities full of tyrants,
herself no more the mistress of provinces, but a
brothel, she reeled like a storm tossed and pilotless
vessel in a mighty storm. ^ Small wonder that the
strong little city that bordered his Proven9al domains,

^ See Gregorovjus : Geichichte d. S/aJt R.m., Vol. V. p. 628
et seq., and Dante : Purg., VI. 76 et seq.

'John XXII

and with a friendly and potent monarchy across
the Rhone, should have offered a more attractive
sojourn to a Gallic pope than anarchic and hostile
Rome.

On August 25, 1316, John XXII despatched his
episcopal chwarius to Avignon with 100 florins of
gold to prepare the palace for his reception. It was
a brave sight, as the pontiff", on October 2, with his
attendant cardinals in rich and magnificent array,
entered the Rhone gate of the city. The cardinals,
says Nostradamus, were like flaming torches around a
great and brilliant star, or so many shining planets
around their sovereign sun : they were the sacred
princes and true hinges of tiic Roman Church. The
citizens, however, regarded the entry of the court
with mingled feelings, for all this splendour of
equipage was to be quartered upon them. Two
papal and two royal ^ forerunners had prepared the
way and assigned the best houses for the reception of
the cardinals and their households. The list of the
properties which were delivered (Jivrccs) to them, and
afterwards known as the cardinal's livrccs, is printed in
Fantoni, and covers seventeen closely printed quarto
pages. Many families were compelled to surrender
their ancestral homes and seek habitations elsewhere ;
complaints loud and bitter reached the pope's ears of
the difficulty the owners had in obtaining any just
equivalent for the rent of their expropriated homes, and
a special tribunal was appointed to adjutiicate on the
matter. After protracted and stormy debate it was
decided that the cardinals must pay up monthly, how-
ever much they might resent it — a wise and reasonable
decision, says Nostradamus, for the cardinals were

1 Representing Robeit the Wise in his capacity of Count of
Provence.

59

Avignon

possessed of many fat benefices. So difficult did it
become to find house-room that folk were forced to
sleep in wooden sheds erected in cemeteries, where-
upon John ordered their demolition. ^

The old episcopal palace, a spacious fortified struc-
ture situated at the south of the cathedral of Notre
Dame des Doms, together with the almonry, hospital
and garden ; the old parish church of St. Stephen,
standing between the palace and the cathedral ; the
prior's house and two other private edifices, had
been assigned to the pope; and on October 30, 1316,
William of Curcuron, a local mason and master of the
works, drew a first instalment of sixty florins from
the papal treasury to pay his men, who worked night
and day in feverish haste. In 13 18 three payments
for the painting and decoration of the upper and
lower chapels of St. Stephen's prove that the old
parish church had been restored and prepared as a
pontifical chapel, and lavish payments for arras tapes-
tries, gold and silver vessels and precious stuffs were
made. A new Hall of Audience for the papal law
courts was subsequently erected, where the famous
Audttori del/a Ruota, or court of appeal, created by
John, held its sittings. This famous tribunal was
composed of twelve judges appointed by the pope, to
whom was entrusted supreme jurisdiction over the
whole Christian world. Meanwhile a new episcopal
palace was rising to the north of the old one on a
large plot of land bought by the pope's nephew,
Arnaud de Via, who had been appointed bishop of
the city. The bark of Peter was safely moored at
Avignon.

Adequately to cieal with the reign of John XXII
would necessitate a review of the history of western
^ Maulds : Anckns Textes, p. 328.
60

7^//;; XXII

I'.urope. " This great and bcl esprit enclosed in a small
body," says Nouguier, " changed the whole aspect of
the Church, and the register of his eighteen years of
office is as full as that of a century " : only the briefest
outlines can therefore here be drawn. Any faint hope
the Italians may have cherished of a less partial college
was dashed by the first Consistory of Avignon. Three
months after his arrival John created eight cardinals :
one his nephew, Arnaud de \'ia ; three from his
native diocese of Cahors ; of the others, one was a
Gascon, and another the chancellor of the King of
France ; only a solitar}' Italian, and he an Orsini,
was created. Of the second batch of seven, three
were French or Provencal. A third creation of ten,
consisted of six French cardinals, one Spanish, and
three Italians. In the first year of his pontificate
Jolin canonized an Angevin prince, St. Louis of
Toulouse, and, cicclaring the imperial throne vacant,
f )r which Duke Louis of Bavaria and Duke F'rederick
of Austria were contending, he reappointed the
Angevin King of Naples, Robert the Wise, papal
vicar-general in Italy.

The papal court had not sat many months in
Avignon when the widening rift within the Fran-
ciscan Order (which even in its founder's days had
declared itself) between the strict observants of the
gospel rule of poverty and the relaxed policy of Friar
Flias, had resulted in open rupture. The former
had been unappeased by Clement's gentler methods,
and coercion had been tried. In 13 17 a crowd
of ragged insurgent mendicants clad in short,
squalid garments, marched chaunting into Avignon
and, issuing into the square before the papal palace,
demanded audience of the pope. They were a
deputation from the Spirituali friars of Provence,

61

Avignon

who had risen against their Conventuali superiors,
deposed them, and reinstated the zealous Spirituali
wardens who had been ejected from their settle-
ments and excommunicated. Arriving late they had
been refused audience, and, uncompromising poverelli
as they were, lay down on the bare earth and awaited
the dawn. Jolin, however, was made of sterner stuff
than the tolerant Clement. He brooked no insub-
ordination, and six of the ringleaders were, on the
morrow, laid by the heels in jail, the remainder
despatched to the Avignon friary, where they were
kept under observation. He then called a council
and ordered the recalcitrant friars to resume the
regular habit of their order, to submit to authority,
and restore unity to the community. The majority
submitted, but twenty-five of the stiff-necked and
rebellious Spirituali were handed over to the Inqui-
sitors, who succeeded in bending the necks of twenty
to the yoke : of the recusant five, four were burnt
alive at Marseilles on May 7, 1318, and one im-
prisoned for life. On November 12, 1323, John
published the famous Constitution, Cum inter non-
nuUos} which declared the doctrine of the Spirituali,
that Christ and His disciples had no more than the
immediate use {usus facti) of things and possessed
nothing individually or collectively {nihil in spcciali
nee etiam in communi) to be heretical. Pontifical
surgery cut deep, and to this day the wound remains
unhealed. The majority of the friars obeyed, but
a considerable and influential minority, diffused over
the whole of Christendom, declared Pope John him-
self guilty of heresy, and in 1327 Friar Michael, the
General of the Order, asserted at the Chapter ot

1 HoLZAPFEL : Handbuch d. Geschickte d. Franciscanerordens,
p. 71.

62

"John XXII

Perugia that the doctrine of absolute poverty so far
from being heretical was pure Catholic dogma. He
was deposed for his temerity, but the friars reap-
pointed him to otHce, and John summoned him to
Avignon : he obeyed, withstood |ohn to his face,
but the smell of the Marseilles fires reached him,
and he fled with William of Occam to Louis the
Bavarian,^ who, having ignored John's citation to
Avignon, to answer for his unauthorized assumption
of the imperial crown in 1322, had felt the weight of
papal displeasure.

John, who in 1317 had reatlirmed papal claims
to divinely delegated supremacy over temporal as
well as spiritual things, attacked the eiefiant Louis
with all the spiritual artillery at his command. He
declared the usurper's impious acts and deeds null
and void ; the prelates were forbidden to do homage
to him ; edict after edict was launched at the
rebellious Bavarian, and at last John fulminated
the final bolt of excommunication against that sen
of Gehenna as a heretic and harbourer of heretics.
Needless to say, the errant Franciscans found a
ready protector in Louis of Bavaria, who already in
1324 had retorted the charge of heresy on his papal
enemy and issued a lengthy appeal- to a general coun-
cil. At the head of a powerful army the Bavarian
descended on Milan, won the iron crown, and pur-
sued his triumphant march to Rome ; there, before
a popular assembly on the piazza of St. Peter's in
April 1328, he published a violent ban of excom-
munication against John, whom he declared to be
deposed from his office as a notorious and manifest

^ Holzapffl, p. 26.

'" The document fills thirty-four columns in Baluze. See
Vol. II. pp. 478-512.

63

Avignon

heretic, guilty of pestiferous and detestable blas-
phemies, and as one having incurred the canonical
punishment due to heresiarchs. In the following
month Louis set up an opposition pope in Peter's
seat at Rome in the person of the Franciscan friar,
Peter of Corbario, and received at his hands, who
styled himself Nicholas V, the imperial diadem of
Charlemagne. Friar Peter did not enjoy his perilous
eminence long. After a brief curial session in the
archiepiscopal palace at Pisa, Nicholas V, a hunted
fugitive, sought peace with John at Avignon, and on
August 25, 1330, an accursed and miserable outlaw,
he knelt in the dust with a rope round his neck,
confessed himself scckrat'isshnus pecrntorum, and craved
mercy, penance and absolution. Having abjured all
his past errors and crimes he swore obedience to the
mandates of the Church ; John, mercifully lifting
him up, kissed him in token of forgiveness and
assigned him 3000 crowns of gold for maintenance.
Friar Peter was then placed in safe ward until it were
seen whether he would walk in darkness or in light ;
and " even now, as we write," says the chronicler,
" he is treated as a friend, although watched as an
enemy." ^ Friar Peter gave no further trouble, and,
dying three years later, was buried in the church o{
the Friars Minor at Avignon, where his tomb remained
— a mute testimony to the power of the papacy
at Avignon — until the Great Revolution. Nor did
Louis the Bavarian fare better. He, too, with his
anti-pope and ephemeral cardinals, fled from Rome
amid the maledictions and missiles of a hostile popu-
lation, crying : " Death to the Bavarian ! " and " Long
live Holy Church ! " His imperial fabric had vanished
like an empty dream, and he slunk over the Alps, dis-
1 Baluze, Vol. I. pp. I4i;-i52.
64

The Black Art

graced and defeated.' In December 1329, R(jhert of
Naples, John's vicar, was in Rome again, the revolted
States sued for absolution, and the triumphant pope
beheld the hand of God in the mockery and defeat
of his enemies- Louis made repeated, even abject,
overtures to Avignon, but the inflexible pontiff as
often rejected them.

Our story reverts to the year 1^17 and to scenes
of judicial cruelt}' such as the modern reader can
barely conceive of. The medieval mind was girt
about with unseen terrors. In addition to the ever-
present menace of plague and pestilence and famine,
of battle and murder and sudden death, diabolic
powers, mysterious and invisible, peopled the air,
who at the command of sorcerers and their master-
spirits brought ill-fortune, disease and death to
mortal man. No one, however exalted his station,
was immune from these supernatural and ubiquitous
forces of evil. Popes and cardinals, emperors and
kings, had been done to death by black and devilish
arts (so it was universally believed), and defenceless
and unsuspecting victims had been palsied and
withered. Terror and cruelty are akin, and thus
the law measured the atrocity of its repression by
the dread that possessed its ministers. On May 4,
I 3 1 7, the Bishop of Cahors, convicted of having been
implicated in an attempt to poison Pope John XXII,
and of compassing the death of his nephew. Cardinal
Jacques de \"ia, by witchcraft of waxen images, was
publicly degraded at Avignon. Stripped of his vest-
ments, his mitre, his episcopal ring, his biretta — for
he was a Doctor of Laws — he was laid in jail. One
sultry July day of the same year, after a final degrad-
' St-e the graphic story in ViUani, Lib. X. cap. 98.

F 6;

Avignon

ation by the removal of the clerical tonsure, he was
clothed in a sheet and handed over to the secular
arm in the person of the pope's marshal, one
Walsingham, an Englishman. The unhappy prelate
was then tied by his heels to the tail of a horse and
haled through the streets of Avignon to the place of
execution. There the grey-haired old man, bruised
and bloody, was flayed alive and then roasted to death
by slow fire.^

Now Pope John himself was obsessed by dread of
these aerial legions, and had pledged all his possessions
to the Countess of Foix for the loan of a serpent's
horn which was believed to be an infallible charm
against their awful powers. Nor were his fears
unfounded. On February 9, 1320, Bartholomew
Cannolati of Milan, a clerk in holy orders, swore
some startling depositions before Cardinal Arnaud
de Via, the apostolic notary, and other papal com-
missioners at Avignon. In October of the previous
year, said the deponent, Duke Matteo Visconti, the
excommunicate Ghibelline despot of Milan, bade
him attend at his palace in that city, where,
being arrived, he was ushered into the duke's private
chamber. Besides Visconti, there were present his
justice. Dominie Scot of San Gemignano and Master
Anthony Pelacane, his physician. Matteo drew the
deponent aside and begged a great service of him —
a very great service. Bartholomew, having assented,
the duke called Dominie Scot, who drew from his
bosom a small silver image, about a palm high or
more, in the form of a man and complete in every
detail, on whose forehead was engraved. Jacobus Papa
Johannes, and on the breast the cabalistic sign "^ and
the word Amaymon : these, as he afterwards explained
^ Baluze, Vol. I. pp. 154, 737.

66

The Black Art

under examination, were the symbol of Saturn and
the name oi a potent demon of the western parts.
The head of the image was hollow and covered by
a movable circular lid. The duke then declared,
that John was no more pope in God's eyes than he
was, and that the image had been made to pay John
back in his own coin for having tried so persistently
to work the \'isconti's destruction ; but the image, to
do its deadly work, must be subfumigated, and since
Bartholomew was the only person who could per-
form the incantations with the necessary solemnity
the duke promised to make him rich and powerful
if he would do his bidding. Bartholomew depre-
cated any knowledge of these dangerous arts, but
Dominie Scot drew forward and said, " Hast thou
any zuccum de mapello ? " Bartholomew denying all
acquaintance with so deadly a drug, was interrupted
by Master Anthony, who bade him beware, for he
had seen it in his possession. Bartholomew now
owned up, but said that a certain friar had bidden
him in confession cast the devilish stuff away, and
he had thrown it into a cesspool. Nothing further
could be extracted from Bartholomew, so he was
dismissed with fearful threats of consequences if he
divulged a word of what had passed.

A month later, Bartholomew was again summoned
to the palace, and asked about a certain Peter of
Verona, and requested to take the image to him,
who was admitted to be the next best qualified
master for the business : Bartholomew pleaded ill-
health, and was again angrily dismissed. Master
Anthony, he subsequently learned, had taken the
image to Verona. Shortly after these events, being
summoned to Avignon, Bartholomew happened on
Dominie Scot in Milan, who invited him to his

F 2 67

Avignon

house, and there the pair fell talking of professional
matters such as love spells, hidden treasure and the
like, when, after a while, the matter of the image
was reverted to. Scot said all went well ; the sub-
fumigation had been excellently performed, and on
Bartholomew desiring to see the image he drew it
from a chest. The deponent then saw the name
of another devil, Meruyn, inscribed between the
shoulders. The image, said Scot, had been sub-
fumigated for nine nights and was now all but
ready ; the hollow space on the head was to be
filled on the ensuing Saturday, then, after certain
incantations had been worked for seventy-two nights
the image was to be placed on a fire, night after
night, and as the contents were slowly consumed,
even so Pope John would infallibly wither away
and die. Of this awful plot, Bartholomew said, he
at once warned the papal officers, that they might be
on their guard.

We now turn to the second deposition made at
Avignon on September il, 1320. One day in
March of that year Bartholomew, while riding home
with his servants through the streets of Milan, was
accosted by Justice Scot's deputy, who said : ''Ah !
Messer Bartolomeo, what — back from Avignon ! The
justice desires to confer with you." Arrived at
Scot's house, Bartholomew was incontinently flung
into a dark dungeon, loaded with chains, and made
to pay a florin a day for his maintenance : the care-
fully concocted spells had failed, and Pope John was
not a penny the worse. Scot railed at his prisoner
as an informer, and since Bartholomew persisted in
denying the charge, saying he had only gone to
Avignon to tend Pierre de Via who lay sick, the
usual methods of mediaeval torture were resorted to

68

The Black Art

in order to extort a confession, despite his victim's
claim to benefit of clergy, and his appeal to the
Archbishop of Milan, all of which Scot scornfully
turned a deaf car to, saying he recked naught of
clerical tonsure. Heavy weights were tied to
Bartholomew's feet, and he was then swung by his
arms over a pulley and jerked up and down, Scot
threatening the while in a terrible voice to rack him
to death if he did not divulge what he had revealed
at Avignon. Forty-two days of this horrible torture
having failed to break down Bartholomew's fortitude
and constancy — so he told the papal commissioners — •
the prisoner was released on heavy bail (2000
florins), on his promise to report himself twice daily
to Justice Scot. Hereupon Matteo's son, Galeazzo
Visconti, invited Bartholomew to his camp at
Piacenza, and having obtained relief from his duty
to Scot, the unhappy clerk repaired thither. A most
remarkable interview ensued. " Come," said Gale-
azzo, " make a clean breast about this business of
the image. We had it healed with such solemn
incantations that it must infallibly have done for the
pope ; yet, so far from being dead, he is persecuting
me and my father with greater vigour and success
than ever : some human agency must have inter-
vened." Bartholomew, having asseverated that he
liad not interfered, suggested that the business had
obviously been bungled, whereupon Galeazzo entreated
him instantissime for God's sake to aid him and his
fither in yet another trial ; but the poor clerk, who
had evidently had enough of popes and potentates,
declared he could not imperil his immortal soul in
such nefarious work. " Pooh ! " answered Galeazzo,
" to kill Pope John would be a work of charity and
mercy, and would save your soul even if you were

69

Avignoji

damned already." Bartholomew temporized, promised
to think it over, and Galeazzo said he hoped that
God would guide his thoughts aright {Dcus det t'lbi
bene cogitare). Galeazzo now remarked that he
had already sent for Master Dante Allghieri, of
Florence, to come to him on the aforesaid business ;
Bartholomew replied that he would be only too
pleased if Dante did what was wanted. Galeazzo
protested, however, that not for the world would he
suffer Dante to have a hand in the matter, and that
he had the greatest confidence in Bartholomew's
powers.

Two days passed, and Galeazzo again sent for him
and asked if he were now prepared to help him rid the
earth of that great devil the pope. Bartholomew
feigned consent, and succeeded in getting thirty gold
florins from Galeazzo to purchase the necessary zuccum
de mapello at Como or Milan. He also obtained
possession of the fateful image from Galeazzo's own
hand with which he made off, hot foot, to Avignon ;
and this silver simulacrum he produced before the
papal commissioners wrapped in a cloth together with
incriminating letters — a damning confirmation of the
Viscontis' guilt. Accusations of this nature against
the arch-enemies of the papacy were sweet to hear
at the Curia, and doubtless Bartholomew was richly
rewarded for his evidence, as well asithe compensation
he received for the loss of his four horses, value loo
florins and more, which he asserted Scot had con-
fiscated at Milan. ^ The interest of this remarkable

* Zauherinnenzveien an fangs des 14. Jahrhunderts. K. Eubel :
Gbrres Gesellscliaft. Historisches Jahrbuch, Band XVIII. pp. 608-
625. The validity of the reference to the author of the Di-vina
Commedia is much canvassed by Dantologists. See also The
'limes. May 28, 1910.

70

The Black Art

episode lies in the fact that those concerned were
not poor, benighted, ignorant folk, but men of the
highest education and estate. Pope John was a man
of vigorous intelligence and profound sagacity ; the
Duke of Milan, a great military captain and ruler
over one of the most powerful and wealthy States of
north Italy ; Dominic Scot was a learned judge, and
Master Anthony an eminent physician. Nothing
can more clearly exemplify the profound contrasts ot
the Middle Ages — -ages of infinite tenderness and pity
and charity, yet of callous insensibility to human
suffering ; of fervent piety and beautiful self-abnega-
tion, yet of fiercest lusts and unbridled sensuality ;
of deep spirituality, of preoccupation with things ot
the mind and with the nature of the unseen world,
yet of grossest materialism ; of keenest intellectuality,
yet of grovelling superstition and puerile science.

Pope John, despite the multifarious cares of his
office — and some conception of his marvellous activity
may be seen in the 65,000 letters relating to his
reign on the Vatican registers ^ — was much concerned
with theological speculation, and found time to
prosecute his scholastic studies. On All Saints' Day
of 1333, in a sermon preached at Avignon, he pro-
pounded the novel doctrine that the souls of the
blessed had no clear vision of the Divine Essence
before the resurrection of the body and its reunion
with the soul on the Judgment Day : not even the
Holy Virgin herself could enjoy the perfect vision of
the Sacred Trinity before that awful doom, but could
only comprehend the humanity of her Divine Son.
A learned Dominican scented heresy and wrote against
the doctrine ; John defended his thesis, the supreme

^ See Analecta Vatkano-Belgica^ Vol. II. Lettres de Jean
XXll. Publides par A. Foyer. 1908.

71

Avignon

theologians of Paris intervened, the University of
Paris declared the doctrine heretical and the pope
himself a heretic if he maintained it. The whole
air of Christendom became charged with passionate
controversy. King Philip of France, King Robert
the Wise of Naples, protested against the heresy, and
the problem of the Beatific Vision became the burning
question of the day. John never renounced his
opinion until he lay in mortal sickness, when friendly
exhortations persuaded him to submit to the autho-
rity of the Catholic Church, and to sign a formal
retractation. It will be seen, however, that the
indomitable old pontiff, even with death at his throat,
contrived to insert a saving clause. On December
3, 1334, at the first hour of the day, being a Sunday,
believing himself about to die. Pope John declared,
confessed and believed, that purged souls, parted from
their bodies, are verily in the heaven of heavens and
in paradise with Christ amid the angelic hosts, and
do behold the Divine Essence face to face and clearly,
in 50 far as the state and condition of the soul apart from
the body may comport ; and that anything he may have
said, preached, written or disputed to the contrary,
either in dogmatizing, teaching, arguing or writing
about these matters, or any others, regarding the
Catholic fliith — all such he willed should be deemed
not said or preached or written and expressly re-
voked ; and all the aforesaid things, or any others,
written or said in any place or in any state, he
submitted to the judgment of the Church and of his
successor : ^ his successor spoke with no uncertain
voice, and two years later Benedict XII, in full
Consistory, anathematized as heretics all who held such

1 Baluze, Vol. I. p. 183. See also Villani, Lib. XI. cap. 19,
who had a copy of the retractation from his brother at Avignon.

72

//

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J/'

?4 », ife'

'■\\ 1^ ' II I: iiii""! '

, 'r ' III 'llilll'L, i,'*^ *4tes5?£BS!'

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roMK i)l-- I'OI'K JiiHN X\II

73

Avignon

doctrines, and threatened them with tlie penalties
incurred by heretics.

The ink was scarcely dry on the retractation when
death solved the problem of the Beatific Vision for
John XXII, for on that same Sunday his unquiet
spirit lay at rest, and once again the Transalpine chair
of Peter fell vacant. During John's pontificate the
Dominicans were rewarded for their constancy and
sacrifices by the canonization of Thomas Aquinas,
their great teacher : and a saintly and learned Bishop
of Hereford, Chancellor of Oxford, who had died in
Rome in 1282, was also raised to the seats of the
Blessed.

John XXII opens the the line of the great building
popes of Avignon. In addition to his architectural
activity at the papal palace he restored the episcopal
chateaux at Noves, Barbentane, Bedarrides and
Chateauneuf ; he built the pontifical chateau at Pont-
de-Sorgues near the ruined stronghold of the counts
of Toulouse 1; he added a chapel to the cathedral,
where ten years later a magnificent sepulchral monu-
ment,^ erected by Master Jehan of Paris, at a cost of
650 florins of gold, was raised to his memory ; he
enlarged and added chapels to the church of St.
Agricol, he extended the Dominican and Franciscan
friaries, the Carmelite monastery, the Hospital of
St. Benezet ; he built the church of Notre Dame des
Miracles and a new almonry ; he was lavish in his
gifts to churches, to his servants, and to the poor.
Much has been done in recent years to clear John's
memory from the charge of avarice levelled against
him by Italian partisans. His wealth, as we shall
presently see, was enormous, but the flourishing con-
dition of the Avignon treasury was largely due, says
^ See p. 30. - See pp. 301, 302*

7^

Wealth of the Papal Court

Gollcr, to John's careful economy and to his improved
method of book-keeping and financial control.'

According to Villani — who makes the statement on
the authority of his brother, who was the representa-
tive at Avignon of the great Florentine banking
house of the Bardi, of w'hich they were members — ■
eighteen millions of gold florins were found in the
papal treasury at John's death ; and gold and silver
vessels, crosses, mitres, jewels and precious stones
to the value of seven millions more. And this pro-
digious wealth, adds the historian, was amassed by
his industry and sagacity and the system of the
reservation of all the collegiate benefices in
Christendom on the plea of preventing simony. -
According, however, to Samaran and Mollat,'' the
papal treasury at John's death contained less than one
million florins, but, accepting V'illani's statement for
the moment, what may this vast sum be estimated to
represent in modern values ?

The amount of gold in the famous florin of
Florence is u'cU known. Villani tells us * that the
good money of the gold florin was first coined in
1252, of twenty-four carat standarci, and that eight
of these florins went to the ounce of gold : each
florin exchanged for twenty soldi of silver and each
soldo for twelve denari. On the face was stamped the
lily of Florence : on the reverse St. John the Baptist.
In September 1322 the Florentines, much to Villani's
disgust, gave permission to John XXII to coin a

Vatikar.hchc Quellen ■zur Gescltkhte der p'dpitl'tchcn Hof- und
Fiiianz Verzvaltung, JJ16-/J78. Einnahmcn d. p'dpst, Kammer
iintcr Johann XX II.

2 Lib. XI. cap. 20.

■' La Fhcalit'e pontif. en France, fasc. 96, p. igo. The actual
figure was probably somewhere between the two amounts.

■* Lib. VI. cap. 54.

75

Avignon

florin of the same alloy and weight as that of Florence,
but distinguished by the imprint of the pope's name
on the face. Now, inasmuch as the Florentine
coins, by reason of their purity, soon became a
standard of value for all Christendom, other States
began to imitate them so closely as to cause much
confusion : John therefore, in 1324, issued a bull of
excommunication against those princes, such as the
Marquis of Montferrat and the Spinolas of Genoa,
who were minting them. But, complains Villani, Pope
John himself was equally at fault, for he, too, issued a
florin that differed from the Florentine piece merely
by the imprint of a papal tiara on the reverse and of
the letters St. Peter and St. Paul ^ on the face. Of
the existing papal florins of the reign of John, how-
ever, engraved in the pages of Orsini ^ and of
Vettorl,^ none bears his superscription, but simply a
papal crown to the left of the head of the Baptist and
the cross keys to the right of the lily : only the letters
SANT PETRH. (Petrhus) are impressed. The coins
are identified by the fact that the crown is the double
one first adopted by Boniflice VIII and used by John to
denote the twofold authority over spiritual and secular
matters, whereas a triple crown was assumed by
Benedict XII, John's successor, to denote the Church
triumphant, militant and everlasting. This curious
fact was finally established by Sade, who was present
at the opening of John's tomb at Avignon in 1759,
and who, carefully examining the tiara, found it con-
sisted of a two-fold crown : on his recumbent statue
also was carved the double crown, and on that of
Benedict the triple crown. "* There is some reason to

1 Lib. IX. cap. 279.

- Star, dclla Monete della Rep. Fiorcntina, p. xxvi.

3 // Fiorina d'Oro Antico, p. xiv.

* Memoires pour t'ie de I'dtrarquc^ Vol. I. pp. 258, 259.

76

A Cardlnars Hoard

believe that the papal florin was only of twenty-three
carat gold and quoted at a discount on change at
Florence,^ but it was certainly received at Marseilles
in 1365 as equal in value to its rival, for in that year
enactment was made that, if of good fine gold and
just weight, the florin of our Lord the Pope and the
florin of Florence were to be current in that city for
one and the same value, and that no other gold pieces
should be legal tender." We may therefore accept
the metallic value of the papal florin, at eiglit to the
ounce, as equivalent to 9/. <^d. on the basis of the
English Coinage Act of 1870. But what was the
purchasing power of the eighth of an ounce of gold
in the fourteenth century ? No precise answer can
be given. The gold florin of Florence had only been
in circulation a few years when the most bewildering
variations began to occur in the ratio between the
standard gold coin and the silver currency. The
Florentine florin which in 1252 exchanged for twenty
soldi, in 1 277 exchanged for thirty, in 1286 for
thirty-five, in 1303 for fifty-two, in 1337 for sixty-
two, in 1343 for sixty-five,-' and the rates at Avignon,
one of the greatest financial centres of Europe, were
equally variable. Authorities differ as to whether
these variations were due to the appreciation of gold
or to the depreciation of silver. What the gold florin
did was to fix a definite standard of value, and since
folk in those days did not, as now, hoard the
power to call on gold but the actual gold itself, the
amount of the precious metal withdrawn from
circulation must have been considerable.

A striking example of this and also of the monstrous
wealth accumulated by the princes of the Church at
Avignon is afforded by the personal estate left by

1 Vcttori, p. 26. - Du Cange, sub 'verbo Floreni.

^ Villani, pasfim.

11

AvJg?ion

Cardinal Hugh Roger in 1364. His executors found
in a red chest, twenty-one bags of gold, which they
counted and weighed : each bag contained 5000
Florentine florins of fine gold of standard weight
of the papal chamber. Other bags they found
and counted their contents as follows : 5000 Pied-
montese gold florins, 5000 old gold crowns, three
bags each of 4500 gold crowns and one of 4266 ;
5000 old gold regalia, 2000 gold florins of Aragon ;
in other bags, purses, and, wrapped in cloths : 855
gold francs, 500 gold pavlglioni, 500 gold angels,
97 gold ducats, 100 gold papal florins and 263 of
Florence, 5 i i Sicilian and four Florentine florins,
900 gold florins du grayle. Sundry bags of silver
they valued at 1209 gold florins. The executors
also found a large treasure of gold plate, jewels, orna-
ments, books and other property.^ Clearly the Church
could no longer say : " Silver and gold have I none "
— but it preferred gold, as the relatively small hoard in
silver proves. How far the accelerated relative
depreciation of silver may have been due to this
nursing of gold, and how far to actual debasement of
the silver coinage, is not known ; but if we accept the
multiple of eight- in translating the papal gold florin
into modern values we shall not be far wrong. This
equation would give the approximate value of the
papal treasure at John's death, according to Villani's
statement, at the incredible figure of one hundred
million pounds sterling, and the personal property
left by Cardinal Roger must have amounted to not
much less than three-quarters of a million sterling in
modern values.

1 Baluze, Vol. II. pp. 762-767.

^ Eugene MUntz, after careful study, adopts a multiple of
from 8 to 10. See " L'Argent et la Luxe a la Cour Pontif.
d' Avignon," Re-vue des Questions Historijues,Wo\. LXVI. pp.i-io.

78

A CardtJiar s Hoard

The sources of this prodigious wealth were the
plural benefices held by the princes of the Church,
of which John's nephew, Cardinal Jacques de Via,
may be taken as an example : he, the cardinal-priest
of St. ]ohn and St. Paul, and Bishop of Avignon, held
in addition two archdeaconries, three canonries (one
at Lincoln), three rectories (one at Chichester), six
priories, two deaneries, and the treasurership of Salis-
bury Cathedral.^ UnderClementV the youthful Prince
Philip of Majorca was receiving temporalities at seven-
teen years of age : at one time he held canonries at
Chartres, Paris, Beauvais, Tournay and Barcelona ; he
was custos of St. Quentin, and held the preferment
to all the benefices of the provinces of Narbonne and
Tarragona up to the sum of 200 and 300 marks
respectively ; he was treasurer of St. Martin at Tours,
secular abbot of St. Paul at Narbonne, and held the
canonries of Elne and Majorca ; he was provost of
Bages, perpetual pensioner of St. Cyprian in the
chapter of Elne, and held divers other benefices in
the provinces of Tarragona and Saragossa and in the
diocese of Majorca. The least favoured of the Curia
accumulated from three to four benefices and drew
the revenues from England, Flanders, France, Italy,
and other nations, which enabled them to live
luxuriously in splendid palaces at Avignon and the
Comtat : pluralism was no invention of the Avignon
popes, but its abuse, together with financial exactions
of the later pontiffs on the Rhone during the Great
Schism, undoubtedly helped to prepare the ground
for the Reformation and to foster the idea of national
churches.

' For these and similar details see the Analtcta Vatkano-
Belgica, already cited, and the Reuue ties Questions Historiques,
Jan. I and Oct. i, 1910.

79

CHAPTER MI

PETRARCH AT AVIGNON BENEDICT XII CLEMENT VI

RIENZl AT AVIGNON

In the last years of Clement's pontificate there
arrived at Avignon Ser Petracco, an outlaw from
Florence, his property confiscated, a price set upon
his head, bringing with him a wife and two little
lads, all barely snatched from shipwreck in the
stormy Gulf of Lyons : of these children of mis-
fortune— Francesco and Gherardo — the former was
destined to confer a more enduring fame, to shed a
more brilliant lustre on the city by the Rhone, than
all the line of great pontiffs that paraded their mag-
nificence through its wind-swept streets. The Tuscan
seeker after fortune, finding house-rent in Avignon
too high for his slender purse, despatched his wife
and boys to Carpentras and applied himself to a
jurist's career in the papal city. A curious reference
to the existence at Avignon of an Italian lawyer
named Petracco has recently been published. On
October 24, 13 12, the members of the great banking
firm of the Frescobaldi at Avignon were committed
to prison at the suit of the Bishop of Chester; where-
upon the firm, on October 26, engaged four advocates,
all Italians, at twenty florins each, whose proctor or
solicitor was one Ser Petracco.^ Dates conflict, but

^ C. Johnson : "An Italian Financial House in the Fourteenth
Century," Sf. Albans Architectural and Arc/iifological Society
Transactions, Wo\. I., 1895-1902, p. 331.

80

Petrarch at Avignon

it may well have happened that Petrarch, writing
late in life of his father's arrival at Avignon, had made
a mistake in the year : ^ the coincidence is certainly a
remarkable one.

At Carpentras the young Francesco began a career
of precocious scholarship under the famous pedagogue
Convennole, and was subsequently sent by a fond
and proud fuher to study law at Montpellier.
But the Muses had early marked the young Petrarch
for their own ; his father had given him at Carpentras
a beautiful MS. Isidore ; a chance copy of Cicero,
found among his father's books, had fired his ardent
spirit, and, instead of poring over the tomes of great
jurists, he hungrily devoured and incessantly rumin-
ated on the ornate periods of the Latin master. One
cold winter day, as the young student sat brooding in
his room at Montpellier over a small treasury of the
Latin poets, painfully acc]uired at the cost of much
self-denial, there entered Ser Petracco, angry with
disappointed hopes, and, seizing the precious volumes,
Hung them like heretical poison into the fire. Fran-
cesco, groaning as if he himself had been cast with
them into the flames, and uttering piercing lamenta-
tions, softened his father's ire, wJho snatcheci two
half-consumed volumes from destruction, held smil-
ingly a Virgil in his right hand and the Rhetoric of
Cicero in his left, and said : " This will help you to
bear the loss you have sustained, and this prepare
your mind for the study of the law." - From Mont-
pellier the unwilling law student was despatched to
Italy, but the schools of Bologna held a heady perfume
for the seething brain of the youthful Petrarch. The
poetic fragrance of "the sweetest and subtlest"-* of

• 1313. See /;/>/'$/. <;<y Pw/froi, begun about 1370.
- Rer. Sen.jXV. i. 947 ; Opera, Bale, 1581.
" De y'llg. Elo-j., I. X.

G 81

Avignon

Italian poets, Cino da Pistoia, friend and poetic
correspondent of Dante,^ floated about its halls ; the
fame of Guido Guincelli da Bologna, founder of the
doke st'il nuovo and parent in poesy of Dante- himself,
was a potent lure ; the very speech of Bologna, which
was held by the rigid Dante to be, not without
reason, distinguished for its beauty ^ — all combined
to intoxicate the student's mind : the doctor's cap
never graced the brow of Francesco Petrarca. Or-
phaned of both parents, Francesco, and Gherardo his
brother, were recalled to Avignon in 1326, only to
find that dishonest trustees had left them almost
penniless. Francesco's sorrow was, however, tempered
by the discovery that a precious manuscript of Cicero
had escaped the wreck. The joy of possesbion was
not his for long. Meeting one day his old pedagogue,
Convennole, in the streets of Avignon, he lent him
this unique and beautiful manuscript and another
Cicero, to enable him to finish some work he had in
hand. The impecunious scholar pawned the volumes;
repeated requests to be informed where they might
be redeemed only drew tears from the old man's eyes,
and at length Convennole left the city and Petrarch
lost both master and books.

In the Middle Ages, Law and the Church were
the only avenues to fortune for peaceful folk. The
brothers, therefore, took the clerical tonsure and
waited on fortune. Their efforts to maintain appear-
ances in the ante-rooms of the great in those early
days are humorously recalled in a letter, written
somewhat late in life, by Francesco to his brother,
then a Carthusian monk at Montrieux : their scanty

1 Canzoniere, Sonnet xxxiv.

2 Purg. XXIV. 57 and XXVI. 97-99.
^ De I''iilg. Eloq., I. XV.

82

Petrarch at Avignon

wardrobe ; the exquisite torture of ill-fitting boots ;
the hours spent at their toilet day and night ; their
mutual help with the curling-tongs ; their dread when
they sallied forth lest their well-trimmed locks should
be ruffled in the wind-swept streets or a passing horse-
man should bespatter their only clean and perfumed
garments.* Francesco, doubtless, soon made friends
with the great ladies and pleasure-loving cardinals
who were the dispensers of favours at Avignon, where
Italian was the speech of the courts and Proven9al
the medium of familiar intercourse in the salons.
Petrarch's skill in the vernacular verse of both
tongues, which verse, as Dante tells us, was first
evoked by the need of making poetry intelligible to
ladies, stood him in good stead, and his profound
knowledge of Latin literature proved a password to
the palaces of cultured princes and prelates of the
Church who cherished, or affected to cherish, the
poets and philosophers of ancient Rome. He com-
poseci and sang with facility and grace, accompanying
himself on the lute, and no one in Avignon could
indite a Latin epistle with such classic purity and
polished style.

In 1330 Francesco knit a close friendship with an
old fellow-student at Bologna, the learned and noble
churchman. Bishop Jacopo Colonna, then at Avignon;
he who, when Canon of the Lateran, had daringly
read out before a thousand people in the piazza of
St. Marcellas at Rome the papal bull which anathe-
matized Louis of ]}avaria as a contumacious heretic,
while Rome swarmed with imperial troops, and,
having nailed the document on the church door,
leaped on his horse and escaped to Palestrina.

The bishop inviteel the young Petrarch to his
1 Di Rc/>. Fam., X. 3.
G2 83

Avignon

palace at Lombez, where he passed a heavenly summer,
which in after days he looked back upon as the fliirest
period of his life ; and soon we find him installed, a
cherished and honoured guest, in the palace of Car-
dinal Giovanni Colonna ^ as tutor to the cardinal's
nephew, Agapito Colonna. The illustrious cardinal,
if we may believe his partial panegyrist, was the gent-
lest, tenderest and simplest of men, who treated his
protege as a son, or, rather, as a beloved brother. Of
irreproachable morals and noble bearing, his palace
was the centre of the intellectual life of Avignon ;
a meeting-place where all that was exalted and
cultured in the city foregathered. There Petrarch
found an admiring and indulgent audience and access
to one of the finest libraries in Europe ; there he met
the learned bibliophile, Richard de Bury, Chancellor
of England, reputed author of the Philobiblion, an
envoy from Edward III to the court of John XXII,
whom he questioned as to the position of the Island
of Thule ; there, too, he met the mighty Stefano,
head of the patrician house of Colonna, the glonoso
Colonna of Sonnet x, and hung on his lips as he
recited piteous stories of the fallen grandeur of Rome.
But most important of all in its effect on the poet's
future fame, it was at Avignon in 1327 that the fate-
ful meeting with the immortal and enigmatical Laura
took place, whose grace and beauty were, amid all his
wanderings and ambitions, to draw him back like a
lodestar to the banks of the Rhone. But the loves
of Petrarch and Laura merit a separate treatment.
Suffice it to say that during the pontificate of John
XXII the young humanist established a reputation
at Avignon that was to make him the friend and
confidant of popes and emperors, of kings and princes,

' The palace stood on the site of the present Hotel de Ville.
84

Benedict XII

and the literary dictator of Christendom. At the
request of the pope he seconded the call to the
abortive Crusade of 1334 by two noble poems,
Sonnet xxiii. to Philip of Valois, and Canzone ii. to
his friend, Bishop Colonna of Lombez, exhorting him
to rouse Italy and her sons to take up the lance for
Jesus' sake.

At the death of Pope John XXII the Seneschal of
Provence summoned the twenty-four cardinals to
meet in conclave, and, having assembled in the
Dominican friary at Avignon, he well and straitly
guarded them. On December 20, 1334, after one
of the shortest conclaves in history, Jacques Fournier,
a Cistercian monk, born in the County of Foix and
popularly known as the White Cardinal, waselected
in his place, and chose to be styled Benedict XII.
The inevitable fable in denigration of a French pope
duly appears in V'illani. The cardinals, relates that
partial historian, having reached a deadlock con-
cerning the question of a return to Rome, put jestingly
to the scrutiny the name of the least among them,
when, to his amazement, no -less than to theirs, the
White Cardinal obtained the necessary number of
votes. " You have chosen an ass," was his comment
on the result, wherein, says Petrarch, who also heard
the story, he gave proof of great judgment. Scarcely
was Benedict enthroned at Avignon when appeals from
Rome, and a passionate letter from Petrarch, urged
him to remove the Holy See to Italy. The White
Cardinal, who had no intention whatever of leaving
Avignon, replied that it was impossible to make any
plans until he had decided the question of the Beatific
Vision : meanwhile, to prove the impossibility of
any transference to Italy, he despatched nuncios to

85

Avignon

Bologna with instructions to ascertain what reception
the Curia might expect there, and to prepare a palace
for himself and livrccs for the cardinals, if the citizens
proved to be well disposed. The result was what
Benedict anticipated. The nuncios found the city in
open rebellion, and the citizens, having not long since
ignominiously expelled a French papal legate, were in
no mood to welcome a French pope. As for Rome,
confusion had become worse confounded. The inter-
necine war between Orsini and Colonna raged with
unabated fury ; many of the houses of God were
roofless ; others near to collapse. So neglected and
ruinous and overgrown with weeds were the churches,
that cattle browsed up to the altars in St. Peter's and
the Lateran, and a papal legate offered the marbles of
the Colosseum for lime-burning. ^

The author of the vernacular Roman chronicle,
to whom we owe our knowledge of Rienzi, gives a
vivid picture of the state of Rome in 1327. "I well
remember," he writes, " as in a dream, for I was ot
very tender age at the time, how, being outside the
Church of Aracoeli, I saw Stefano della Colonna, lord
of Palestrlna, and Missore Orso, lord of Castell St.
Angelo, with a troop of armed knights, riding to the
Capital swiftly and proudly ; all were horsed and in
gorgeous trappings. The piazza was a veritable
camp with tents and pavilions, and I remember the
ringing of the bells, the shouts of the people, the
blaring of the trumpets, the rolling of the drums and
the banners fluttering in the wind." He remem-
bered, too, in the same year the repulse of the Guelph
forces under the papal legate in a night attack at
Rome, which opened the way to the entry of Louis
of Bavaria ; the clanging of the alarm bells, the tramp
1 Pastor, L. : Geschkhte der Papite, Vol, I. p. 63.

Benedict XII

of armed men, the shock of battle in the streets,
the people of Rome surging backwards and forwards
like the waves of a storm-tossed sea ; the ghastly
aspect of the streets when morning dawned. From
Castell St. Angelo to the portal of St. Peter's lay
countlesss heaps of the maimed and slain, naked and
bloody, like chaff scattered by the wind : for days the
peasants of the Campagna found the dead bodies of
wounded fugitives who had crept exhausted into the
vineyards or into mountain caves.

Benedict professed himself grieved at the issue of
the attempt to settle at Bologna, and set about the
building of a palace worthy of the Head of Christen-
dom and adequate to the needs of the papal court.
He purchased the new episcopal palace, raised by
Arnaud de V^ia, for the diocese of Avignon, and
ordered that the old one occupied by his predecessor
should be known in future as the Apostolic palace,
which palace in the process of time was by Benedict
and his successors transformed into that edifice, valde
solemne, and of marvellous beauty to dwell in," which,"
says one of the chroniclers, " with its walls and towers
of immense strength stands like himself, four-square
and mighty." ^ Under his pontificate, the cardinals,
too, began to build sumptuous summer palaces at
Villeneuve across the Rhone, at whose sight Petrarch,
in prose and verse, gave vent to intense indignation.
While the roofs of the Apostles and the temples of
the saints at Rome were in ruins, he complains,
magnificent palaces were rising on the Rhone, glitter-
ing with gold, menacing heaven with their proud
towers.

The new pope, burly in form, ruddy-faced and
jonorous, was in person and character a striking
' Baluze, Vol. I. pp. 199, 226, 236.

87

Avignon

contrast to the short, pale, emaciated and treble-
voiced pontiff who preceded him in Peter's chair.
" Pope Benedict," says the author of the Roman
chronicle above referred to, " was a big man and
molto corpulento. He was a most holy man who never
would give dispensation for marriages between kins-
folk, and was careful and diligent in searching the
moral characters of all candidates for benefices, and
many he examined himself. Non bolea ideote — he
would have no illiterates — he went about seeking
good and efficient clerics, and honoured them much
because he found so few. And on a time there came
before this pope a certain Brother Monozella, from
the Abbey of St. Paul's at Rome, who had been
nominated as abbot. Now this monk took delight
in singing about Rome by night and playing his
lute ; for he was a fine player and a beautiful singer
of ballate^ and was wont to frequent the courts of
the nobles and wedding feasts and other festivals.
Ah ! how sorely the blessed Benet^must have grieved
when he beheld his monk dancing and singing !
The abbot-elect came to Avignon and stood before
the pope. 'Holy Father,' said he, 'I am chosen
abbot of St. Paul's at Rome.' Now the pope, who
knew all the monk's ways, demanded of him : * Can'st
thou sing ? ' ' Right well,' answered he. * I mean,'
added the pope, ' the Cantilena.'' Said the elect :
' Yea, and canzoni too.' ' Can'st thou play ? ' * Aye,
that I can.' ' I mean can'st thou play the organ and
the lute ? ' Quoth the abbot, ' Excellently well.'
Then burst forth Benedict angrily and sternly, ' Is
it meet that an abbot of the venerable monastery of
St. Paul should be a buffoon ? Away with thee ! '

■• Ballate were dance measures,

^ St. Benedict, founder of the Order.

Benedict XII

And so," concludes the scribe, " this moni; came
back to Rome with a flea in his ear." ^

Among the many gorgeous spectacles that were
making Avignon a city of regal and imperial splen-
dour was the triumphal entry in 1340 of a solemn
embassy from Alphonso the Brave, King of Portugal,
anci his ally Alphonso of Castile, bringing the Gon-
falon, the latter carried at the attack on Tarifa, and
the twenty-four royal standards captured at that
bloody victory over the four Moorish kings. The
flags were hung in the papal chapel, and, says the
Roman annalist, good King Alphonso, out of the
1000 mule loads of loot, gave 160,000 florins to
the pope, who had sent a welcome contingent of
700 well-armed French and German crusaders, on
stout chargers, assoilcd of pains and sins. One hundred
horses with gorgeous trappings formed part of the
procession, each bearing the scimitar and shield of a
chief Moorish officer slain in the fight ; before these
paced, proudly eminent, the beautiful charger Fer-
rante, noblest of the host, which had been ridden in
battle by Alphonso, King of Castile ; following came
twenty Moorish captives with their arms and accoutre-
ments. Unhappy knights of the Crescent ! The
air of a papal prison soon proved fatal to them : all
died save one, who became a devout Christian and
a servant of the pope,^ As the glittering pageant
approached Avignon, red-robed cardinals went forth
to meet it ; a solemn pontifical mass was celebrated
by Benedict himself, who preacheci a fine sermon,
"Now this Alphonso," writes the chronicler, "was
the most noble, the most glorious, the most just and

' Literally: "with his head washed," Con lo capo la-vato.
MuRATORi : Antiquitata, Vol. III. p. 277.
- Ibid., p. 335.

89

Avignon

most pious king that ever reigned in Spain. He had
every virtue and no defects ; only one thing was
blameworthy — he loved not his queen, although she
bore him a son — and kept a baggage, one Dofia
Leonora, whom he loved above all else, and was his
solace : by her he had sons and daughters, and he
could not exist without her. Many times the pope
admonished him and excommunicated him ; but
Alphonso answered sweetly in a letter, and said :
' Holy Father, an it please you that I die, and live
no longer, I will cast her away, but without her
I cannot live.' And so the Holy Father vexed him
no more, for he would not that Alphonso had a brief
life. This story I heard told by one of the Beadles
in the Rector of Medicine's room when I was a
student at Bologna, learning the fourth book of the
Physics."^

Many and exalted were the envoys that came
entreating absolution from"Dominus Lodovicus, who
called himself Emperor," and who made the most
abject proposals for reconciliation with Avignon ; but
Benedict was as inexorable as his predecessor, and
there, too, across the Rhone stood the great French
king, forbidding any compromise with the enemies
of France. A sixth embassy in 1336 having been
rejected with scorn, Louis turned to make his peace
with Philip VI, and two years later there rode into
Avignon the Imperial Counts of Saxony, of Holland,
and of Hohenberg, whose prayers were reinforced by
the petition of a noble French envoy : Benedict
scornfully replied that he could not hold Louis one
day for a heretic and the next for an orthodox son
of the Church at the good pleasure of the King of
France ; Louis must submit unreservedly and undergo

' MuRATORl : Antiq.yYol. III. p. 341.

90

Benedict XII

canonical penance and then he would listen to prayers
for absolution. When Benedict died in 1342 the
ban of the Church lay still on Louis of Bavaria.

Among the great kings and princes that during
Benedict's reign swept into Avignon, in gorgeous array,
were Peter, King of Aragon, and the young King of
Majorca to do homage to the pope as suzerain for
the kingdoms of Sardinia and Corsica; and a magnifi-
cent and refulgent embassy from the great Cham of
Tartary, consisting of fifteen Tartars of noble birth
and a Frankish lord, who presented letters to the
"Lord of the Christians and the Franks beyond the
seven seas where the sun sets," and who were received
most honourably and accorded many interviews with
pope and cardinals. In 1336 no less a potentate
than Philip of Valois, King of France, in all the
panoply of his high estate came to Avignon, thinking
to benel the will of the imperious pontiff who had
revoked the permission accorded by his predecessor
to tax the clergy for financial aid towards the abortive
crusade of 1334. Philip pretended to be on his way
to Marseilles to organize the crusade, but Benedict
told him that if he had two souls he would willingly
sacrifice one for Philip of France, but since he had
but one he wished to save it, and could not suffer the
money of Holy Church to be spent for aught save
the Holy War.

Benedict was implacable against any of his officers
who betrayed their trust. In the early years of his
pontificate he had strenuously endeavoured to make
peace between France and England, and in 1337
an envoy from Edward III, the noble gentleman
Niccolini Flisco, of Genoa, lay at his inn in the
street of the Currateria,^ when in the silence of the
^ Now Rue Carreteric.

9'

Avignon

night certain sons of perdition and iniquity entered
his chamber, tore him from his bed, and carried him
across the Rlionc a captive to French territory. The
papal marshal had connived at this abominable viola-
tion of the laws of hospitality and the honour of the
papal city, and Benedict, when he heard of the out-
rage, was furious with indignation. ^ No fear of the
secular might of France deterred him ; he fulminated
sentences of excommunication against all concerned
in the abduction, and anathematized any who should
harbour them : so vigorous and effective were his
menaces that in a few days the captured gentleman
was safely back again in Avignon. Punishment, swift
and terrible, fell upon all the officers of his court and
others who had been accessory to the crime. How-
ever exalted their stations they were cast into the
papal prisons. Some were hanged, high as Haman,
on a beam from the window of the inn, others were
executed elsewhere. The pope's marshal cheated the
gallows " not by hanging himself like Judas, but by
taking poison," his body was denied Christian burial
and carried forth in the sight of all the people, on the
shoulders of his servants who had been faithful, and
flung on the banks of the Rhone to be devoured by
the birds of the air or the reptiles of the earth, so
that all trace of him might perish and his name
become a byword in the world. Such was curial
justice in the papal days of Avignon. One of the
last acts of this righteous pope was to inflict exem-
plary punishment on William de Durefert, a corrupt
judge of the criminal court of the county, who sold
justice and oppressed the poor.

1 Spiritus furorh accer:sus. See Baluze, Vol. I. p. 217, and
Vol. II. pp. 595-599, where the bull is printed — a grand example
of pontifical invective.

Benedict XII

Benedict was equally stern to conventual laxity.
He reformed the constitution of the Cistercian and
Benedictine orders, and had girded himself to deal
with the abuses of the mendicant friars when death
stayed his reforming hand. Benedict's pontificate was
unsullied by nepotism. He declared that a pope, like
Melchiscdek, should have no relations ; he only pre-
ferred one of his nephews, whose commanding merit
justified appointment, to the see of Aries at the urgent
request of the cardinals. To kinsmen asking for
favours his answer was : " As Jacques Fournier I
know you well : as pope I know you not." He
routed out place-hunters from his court and sent
bishops back to their dioceses ; he set his face against
pluralism, and even when stricken with death he
presided over Consistory from his bed.

The ambitious and worldly clergy never forgave
15cneciict's rigid economy, his calls to integrity and
devotion to duty, his inflexible will ; and they pur-
sued his memory with bitter calumny. " He was a
man," writes one of his clerical biographers, "hard,
obstinate, avaricious ; he loved the good overmuch
and hated the bad ; he was remiss in granting favours,
and negligent in providing for the services of the
Church ; more addicted to unseemly jests than to
iioncst conversation ; he was a mighty toper ^ and
' Bibamiis papnlitcr — let us drink like a pope' — became
a proverb in his day." A savage libel went the round
of the Court at his death which defamed him as a
wine-bibber, and compared him to Nero : he was a
viper to the clergy and death to the laity.-' Petrarch

' Potator ■villi maxiniiis. Balilzc, Vol. I. p. 241.
- hte fuit Nero, laicis mors, wpera clero,
De'vius a vero, cuppa repUta mero. —

Baluze, Vol. I. p. 240.

93

Avignon

unworthily echoed the calunlny ^ — Petrarch, whom
Benedict in 1325 haci preferred to a canonry at
Lombez, eulogizing the poet's love of letters and
good character.

Benedict pursued the building of the great papal
palace with characteristic Gallic energy, and about
two-thirds of the existing edifice are due to his
vigorous reign. But not only did he leave his mark
so indelibly on the'Rocher des Doms, he restored and
enlarged, wondrously and sumptuously, the old parish

^^^&^::Sa^''

MONASTERY AT BOMPAS

church of St. Pierre, and he built a noble walled
Carthusian monastery at Bompas on the Durance.
The cardinals emulated his munificence ; Bertrand
de Montfavet raised and endowed the grand castel-
lated abbey and church of Montfavet, whose fine
architecture is one of the most precious relics of
conventual architecture near Avignon, and Cardinal
Arnaud de Via built and endowed at \'illeneuve the
noble collegiate church of St. Mary.

On April 25, 1342, Pope Benedict XII went to

^ Ep'nt. sine titulo. Lib. I. Ep. i. Vino madidus a-vo, gra'vis
ac soporifico tore perfusus.

94

Clement VI

his rest, beloved of the poor, whose cause lie judged
righteously and whose wants he liberally relieved ; a
stately monument rivalling that of John XXII
enshrined his remains in a chapel founded by himself
in the cathedral church of Avignon, and miracles
were wrought at his tomb. The Avignon monu-
ment has perished, but the majestic figure of the
great pontiff may still be seen in the crypt of St.
Peter's at Rome ' — one of the finest examples of
fourteenth-century plastic art in existence.

On May 7, 1342, Cardinal Pierre Roger of
Limoges was elected to St. Peter's chair, and on
the 19th of the same month solemnly enthroned
as Clement VI in the presence of the royal
dukes of Normandy, Bourbon, and Burgundy
and a noble congregation of counts, barons, and
knights. It was the day of Pentecost, and as on that
day tongues of fire descended on the apostles, so the
like appeared to descend on Clement as he sat with
the precious carbuncle in the tiara glittering over his
brow. Clement, a learned Benedictine, was of
exalted lineage, and had passed a brilliant scholastic
career ; endowed with a marvellous memory he
was a powerful and eloquent preacher, and when
he held the pulpit at Paris to dispute or preach,
sa}s the Roman chronicler, all the city flocked
t(j hear him. The inevitable embassy from Rome
made an early appearance — six clerics and six
nobles, led by the head of the Senate, the venerable
Stefano Colonna — and entreated the return of the
papacy to the eternal city and the institution oi
a half-centennial Jubilee. To the latter request
Clement acceded : to the former he gave a gracious
but evasive answer, proving by twelve cogent reasons
' In the Grotte Nuove.

95

Avignon

that it was right and just he should come to Rome,
and promised to cross the Alps when he had made
peace between France and England. Petrarch, now
at Avignon, fresh from receiving the laurel crown at
the Capitol, reinforced the demand in an eloquent
epistle, and for reward received the gift of a priorate
in the diocese of Pisa.

The revolution wrought by Clement at Avignon
in the conduct of affairs was pleasing to ecclesiastics,
and they are kind to his memory. He completely
reversed Benedict's policy. Generous and open-
handed, a thousand hungry clerics are said to have
crowded into Avignon seeking preferment, none ot
whom went empty away ; for no suitor should leave
a prince's court, said he, unsatisfied. Exquisitely
polite and courteous, Clement had a gracious amenity
of manner. Accustomed to the society of noble ladies,
his court was crowded with fair dames rnd gallant
knights ; his stables were filled with beautiful horses ;
his hospitality was regal and his table loaded with
rich viands and rare wines. The fair Countess ot
Turenne, his constant companion, disposed of
benefices and preferments, and her favour was the
surest avenue to fortune.^ No sovereign of his time
kept so brilliant and expensive a court, and when one of
the cardinals remonstrated and recalled the examples
of Benedict and of John, he replied magnificently :
" Ah ! my predecessors never knew how to be a
pope." Clement relaxed the rigid constitution of
Gregory X, Ubi niagis, for the government of

1 Matteo Villani of course puts tlic woist construction on this
friendship. Delle femmine, essendo archi-ziesco'uo Jion se ne giiardo
ma trapiissu il modo del secolari gio-vani baroni, e nel papato non
se ne seppe contenere nd occultare ma nelle sue camere andaroiio le
grandi dame, &c. Cronica III. 43.

96

Rkfjzi at Avignon

Conclaves, made in 1274, '"^'""-^ ordered that the
cardinals might have curtains to their cells, to be
drawn when they rested or slept ; they might have
two servants, lay or cleric, as they pleased, and after
the lapse of three days, in addition to their bread and
wine, they might have fruit, cheese, and an electuary,
and one dish of meat or fish at dinner, and another
at supper.^ Clement's lavish generosity subjected
him to unpleasant importunities, as we learn from
an attempt to curb the unbridled audacity of " certain
persons who, casting from them all regard for
decent manners and the reverence due to our-
selves, have presumptuously dared, and still do dare,
when we are in Consistory and at other times when
we are riding, to cast before us, and sometimes upon
us, their petitions, in which they even wrap up stones,
to our perturbation." -

Early in 1343 a second embassy from Rome arrived
in Avignon, despatched by the thirteen Buoni
Huomini or heads of the chief trade guilds, who
had assumed the government of the city. Among
the envoys was one Cola di Rienzi, a handsome,
erudite, and eloquent young notary, son of a laundress
and an innkeeper at Rome, whose impassioned
denunciations of the insolent tyranny of the Roman
nobles and vivid pictures of the desolation due to
abandonment of their heritage by the popes, deeply
moved Clement, and he loved to hear him daily.
But the young Rienzi's growing favour with the pope
was gall and wormwood to Cardinal Colonna and
the party of the Roman nobles at the Curia : they
poisoned Clement's ear and compassed Rienzi's dis-
grace. Poor and sick and ragged, the unhappy Cola

' Baluze, Vol. I. p. 261.

'^ State Papers. Papal Registers : Petitions, Vol. l. 1342-1419.

H 97

\ V

Riefizi at Avignon

was constrained to seek the public hospital, or like a
snake to bask in the sun lor warmth. But the
enthusiastic young Roman patriot and classicist had
found a fervent sympathiser in Petrarch, and fair
were the dreams the}' dreamed of a regenerate and
republican Rome, under the headship of the popes,
free and mighty, as they communed together in
St. Agricol. To Petrarch, Cola's voice seemed the
voice of a God rather than of a man ; he used his
influence with the Colonna and with Clement, and
the disgraced Roman advocate was taken into favour
again : on April 13, 1344, Cola di Rienzi, appointed
Apostolic Protonotary by the Pope, returned to Rome
joyous, but muttering threats between his teeth. ^

During the year 1347 ominous portents foreboded
ill to the city of Avignon. In August a fiery comet
swept across the heavens ; at daybreak on December
20, a column of fire hung over the apostolic palace,
inspiring the cardinals with terror. They were the
dread pursuivants of the devasting Black Death, which
the genius of Boccaccio has impressed for ever on the
minds of men. The plague entered the city on
January 1348, and for seven months the Angel of
Death mowed down his thousands and tens ot
thousands in the homes of Avignon. During the
three days that preceded the Fourth Sunday in Lent,
no less than 1400 victims fell before his passage.
Clement spared no expense to mitigate the horrors ot
the plague; he paid physicians to treat the poor, and
authorized parish priests to give a general absolution
to all who should die of the infection ; he took
measures to check contagion ; bought a public
cemetery - outside the city walls and founded a

' h'ra li Jienti menaccia-va. Muratori, Antiq.yWoX. III. p. 401.
'^ It was known as Campus Floruius (Champ fleuri).

H 2 99

Avignon

hospital there. But the mortality grew apace ; it
was found necessary to consecrate the waters of the
Rhone, into which the bodies were flung, when the
living were unable to bury the dead. Eight cardinals
perished, and crowds of monks and friars. Great
fires were kept burning in the streets, and Clement
secluded himself in his apartments, keeping up roaring
fires day and night.

Among the victims was numbered the fairest and
most famous of Avignon's daughters, Laura, the
beloved of Petrarch, It will now be fitting to tell
of her, and of him —

^ Per cui Laura ebbe in terra onor celesti.

^ Alfieri : Alia Camera Ji Fetratca.

lOO

CHAPTER VIII

PETRARCH AND LAURA OF AVIGNON

It was in the year 1327, at the season when
the cold wanes and happier stars wax in splendour,
that in the early morning of April 6/ Francesco
Petrarca, a youth who yet had ne'er felt a wound,
entered the little church of the Poor Clares at
Avignon to pray. Lifting his eyes, he beheld a sweet
young damsel of Provence, modestly arrayed in green
and decked with violets, whose fair eyes bound him
captive, and drew him into the labyrinth of a passion
whose vicissitudes he has celebrated in 5000 lines
of a lover's plaints and praises. Her form, more
than human, had in it something of celestial grace ;
golden tresses, spun and woven by the hand of Love
himself, fell over shoulders whiter than snow, and
adorned a neck that in its candour eclipsed the white-
ness of purest milk ; tender, flashing eyes shone
beneath eyebrows black as ebony ; from an angelic
mouth, filled with pearls and roses, issued a voice
musical, clear, divine ; her soft cheeks glowed with
melting fire, dainty were her feet, her hands whiter
than ivory — the poet might as well hope to number
the stars of heaven as to set her charms to verse. -

' Thus according to the note in his Virgil (see p. 112);
April 6, 1327, according to Sade, Alcmoircs, Vol. I. p. 122, was
the Monday of Holy Week, whereas the poet, in Sonnet iii.,
tells us the day was Good Friday.

- Sonnets clxxvi., clxiv., dxvi. Canzone xv.

lOl

Avignon

But despite countless references to eyes that full
of joy and modesty and sweetness showed the way
to heaven, their actual colour is an unsolved problem
of the commentators, and to this day no man knoweth
whether Laura's eyes were blue or black. In one of
the famous three sister Canzoiii ^ in praise of her
eyes, and in Sonnet cxviii., they are a bel dolce
soave bianco e ncro ; in Sonnet clxvii. and other ot
the Rime they are seren'i.''' An ingenious Italian critic
of the sixteenth century, who notes that in the
poetical inventory of Laura's charms no mention is
made of her nose, concludes she was endowed with
the pert snub-nose regarded as a mark of Gallic
beauty. Whereupon the Abbe de Sade, sacrificing
his erudition on the altar of his gallantry, protests he
knows not what is meant by a naso scaz'ezzo^^

They were a noble pair of lovers. There was
little of the pale, cloistered student in Petrarch, who,
in the full bloom of early manhood, was handsome,
well-formed, strong-featured, with brilliant eyes and
keen vision, betraying all the fire of his genius ; he
had a rich complexion inclining to dark olive {inter
candidum et subnignini),'^ and was graceful and easy
in bearing. Already in his youth he was so often
pointed out for his beauty that it became an annoy-
ance to him. Later in life his beautiful face and
luminous eyes were wonderfully expressive, and some-
thing of wisdom, gravity, and majesty in his aspect
arrested the attention and compelled the admiration
even of those who knew him not. In the funeral

' Canzone ix. See also Canzone iii., ncl bel nero e ncl bianco.
" Canzone iv., hcl guardo scrcno. She had, however, golden
hair. Ep. Poet., I. 7, caput auriconiiim.
•' Vol. I. p. 123, note.
"* Epist. ad Posteros.

102

PORTRAIT OK l.AURA, SO-CAI.I.EI). Lau>€)itia)t Library, Florence

\_To/acep. 102.

Petrarch and Laura of Avignon

sermon preached at Padua by Fra Bonavenlura, the
preacher dwells on the celestial beauty of his body,
which heaven had endowed with all gifts and graces. i
His physician, Tomaso di Garbo, affirmed that he
had never beheld a healthier or a better constituted
body."

Passing one May day, near Avignon, before the
garden of a veteran servant of love, Laura and
Petrarch arc bidden enter, and with sweet words and
a smile fit to enamour a savage, the old lover plucks
two fair roses, gathered in Paraciise, and hands one
to each, sighing as he exclaims: " Surely the sun ne'er
beheld such a pair of lovers." ^ Efforts have been
made to construct a connected story of the vicissitudes
of Petrarch's passion,' but no exact chronology Oi
the vast collection of Sonnets, Canzoni, Ballate and
other poems in which the story has been enshrined
is possible. The happy discovery by Pierre de
Nolhac (1886) in the Vatican Library of the trans-
cript of the Rime, begun by Petrarch himself in
1368, helps us but little, for it is well known that
when the poet in his old age set about correcting his
"youthful follies in the vulgar tongue," he had but
vague recollections of the occasions of their begetting.
Of how much Wahrhcit and how much D'lchtung the
Rime are compounded will never be known. They
arc the poetical epitome of the hopes, the despair,
the fears, the exaltation, the sorrows and the joys
of all the pilgrims of Love the world has ever

1 See M. A. Bruce-Whytk : Hhtoire da Langucs Romaines,
Vol. III. pp. 362-4.

- ToMASiNi : Pctrarc/iiis Rcdfi-i-vus. Vita Fr. Pcrrtirc/iai; UUrott.
Squaraafcu^, prefixed to the B'llc ed. of the Opera.

•* Sonnet ccvii.

* See the three tomes of the Abbe de Sade, passim.

103

Avignon

seen. They are the quintessence of the themes
sung by —

Those singers in France of old

By the titleless, dolorous midland sea.

Even the very existence of the mistress has been
called in question, whose lovesick swain made every
valley resound to his heavy sighs.

She, cruel one, who with glances that steal men's
souls opened his breast and stole away his heart,
flees before him. He fain would declare his love
yet fears to speak ; he bewails the veil that conceals
her face ; hunting one day he surprises the cruel
fair bathing by noonday heat in a crystal spring,
and angrily she flings water on his face ; he is
changed to a stag, like Actacon of old, and flees with
swift feet from wood to wood, even yet he hears the
hounds baying and feels their fangs in his flesh.
With marvellous variations he plays the old themes
of the classic poets and the Troubadours and the early
Italian dicitori on the lyre of his verse. Like Dante,
he haunts the places where ladies are wont to
assemble ; like him, he travels to a far-off country.
Scarce out of Avignon the errant lover begins to
regret his journey ; through Flanders, Brabant, Aix,
Cologne, her image still pursues him ; he yearns for
the fair land of Provence and the delightful banks of
the Rhone. He returns to Lyons, and descends the
river.

It is the year 133+ ; seven years have passed the
very hour that he writes, and those fair eyes are still
destroying him even as snow melts under the hot
sun — seven years since he has wandered, sighing, from
shore to shore in summer heat and winter cold ; ^
1 Sestina ii.
104

Petrarch and Laura of Avignon

pale as snow, he yet, without and within, is consumed
by raging fires. He longs for death, yet fears to
strike the blow ; he seeks help from his confessor
and tries philosophy. Alas ! alas ! —

Ein Blick "von dir, ein IVort, mchr untcrhdlt
Ah alle Wehheit dieser fVclt.^

He beholds his mistress in the streets of Avignon
and passes by on the other side ; she smiles on him,
but in her presence he is dumb. She tries a little
coquetry ; he plucks up heart, and, passion urging
him, he bursts forth into reproaches for her rigour ;
divining his purpose she flees from him and denies
him her presence. He sickens and grows pale ;
death is imaged on his face : a word of pity from
her lips, and he recovers health and joy and his
natural hue.

He happens on a peasant girl washing his mistress's
veil in a stream, and shivers with amorous chill.
Again he will flee from her ; he ponders on the
peril of his soul, and, as Dante in the dark wood,
he, too, quijsi a mexno il giorno would turn back.^
Eleven years have revolved since he has bowed
beneath Love's pitiless yoke, and in one of the finest
sonnets in the Italian language he beseeches the
Father of heaven, after wasted days, and nights spent
in empty visions, that with His light he may be
guided to a better life and to a nobler emprise ; and
that his obdurate enemy, having spread his nets in
vain, may be mocked. Have mercy, he cries, on my
anguish, not unworthy ; lead back my thoughts to
better things, and recall to them how that this day

^ Faust to Margaret : "One glance from thee, one word, is
more entrancing than all the wisdom in the world."
'^ Madrigale ii.

105

Avignon

Thou wast nailed on the Cross. ^ He seeks solitude
in his hermitage at Vaucluse ; but thrice her wraith
appears at his bedside in the stillness of the night to
reclaim her slave ; pallid, and chilled with fear, he
prevents the dawn ; he flees to the woods, to the
summit of the rocks, in order to escape the pursuing
phantom. Weary of weeping, he resolves to leave
her ; yet, when he begins to recover liberty, he
regrets his slavery, and when he puts on her chains
he regrets his liberty. Fourteen years pass, and his
ardent desire does but wax in fervour ; at Vaucluse
he writes the trinity of sister Canzoni^^ the three
Graces of his amorous muse, before which all Italy
fell prostrate in acimiration. How oft have the hills,
the vales, the rivers, the woods, the fields, mute
witnesses of Jiis dolorous life, heard him call upon
death.

In 1342 he returns from the Capitol, laureate
of poesy, and, sitting in a public place, sees her
approach ; he rises, inclines before her passage ; she,
even as Beatrice to Dante, gives him sweet saluta-
tion and turns to him with a glance that would
have disarmed Jove in all his fury and quenched his
wrath. They meet in an assembly at Avignon ; she
drops her glove — pure, white, dainty, precious glove
of silk embroidered with gold, that concealed her fair
nude hand, whiter than ivory, fresher than roses, with
its five pearls of orient hue. He picks it up ; she
snatches the noble prey from him. Three sonnets relate
the story (clxvi.-clxviii.). Sixteen years of sighs pass ;
he tells in mournful numbers how that Love is sweet,
but life grievous — enthralled, he yet desires to escape ;
would he had a more steadfast will. He watches by

^ Padre del del dopo i perduti giorni. Sonnet xlviii.
^ Canzoni viii., ix., x.

106

Petrarch and Laura oj Avignon

her window at dawn and beholds two suns rise
together at one and the same hour ; one makes the stars
to pale, the other eclipses the sun, Alas, fresh tears of
an ancient passion only prove he ever remains his old
true self ^ He finds no peace, yet cannot wage war ;
he fears and hopes, burns and freezes, soars to heaven
and falls prone on the earth.- As a silly little gnat
in summer heat that in her wantonness flies into the
wayfarer's eye and finds death there, so he runs to-
wards the fatal sun of her eyes. He beholds her in
a little bark filled with joyous dames floating down
the Rhone, one bright sun amid twelve stars : neither
Jason nor Paris e'er bore away so fair a burden ;
again he beholds her, returning on a triumphal
chariot, sitting apart and singing sweetly. O, happy
Automedon ! happy Tiphys ! that didst guide or
pilot such beauteous creatures.^ One of her eyes, the
fairest that ever shone, is infected with ophthalmia :
he, returning to feed his fasting sight, finds Love
and Heaven less hard than is their wont, and by
their grace he is infected with the same malady.
The ill that rejoices, and pains him not, sprang from
her right eye, or rather sun, and, as if endowed with
intelligence and with pinions, the sickness flew to
him, swift as a meteor athwart the sky ; nature and
pity guided its course. ■*

Seventeen years, and his burning love is not
quenched ; but when he reflects on his present state,
an icy blast freezes him amid the flames. As the
proverb says, " 'Tis easier to change the colour of
one's skin than one's habits" — and human passions
slacken not with age. He contemplates the flight of
years. Ah me ! when shall he issue from the burn-

^ Sonnet xcv. - Sonnets civ., ex.

* Sonnet clxxxix. ■* Sonnet xcvii.

107

Avignon

ing and assuage his long pain ? He is ageing, Love
is unmanly ; once again he will depart for Italy. He
takes leave of Madonna ; she pales, casts her gentle
eyes to the earth and seems silently to say : who is
stealing away my faithful friend ?i He is at Verona,
but once more yearns for Avignon ; the sweet hills
and vales where he left his life are ever before his
eyes, and, as the wounded stag that bears the poisoned
dart in his flesh, the farther he flees the more he
feels the smart, even so he, with Love's arrow in his
breast. Wasted with grief, he is weary of fleeing.
He visits again the banks of the Rhone. Twenty
years of traffic in Love have brought him only tears
and sighs and grief : under what evil star must
he have taken the bait. He is chasing a shadow ;
he swims in a bottomless and shoreless sea ; he-
pursues a swift hind on a lame ox ; he seeks her,
blind and weary, day and night, groping, stumbling,
calling on Love and Madonna and Death."-' Yet
again he is drawn to Verona ; with foreboding heart
he takes leave of her, a rose among lesser flowers.
She had quitted her wonted adornment ; no pearls,
nor garland, nor gay attire ; no smiles, nor songs, nor
sweet human speech ; she seemed to dread an ill not
yet felt. A series of woeful sonnets tells of black
thoughts, evil dreams and sad auguries.^ The plague
is raging over western Europe ; he hears no news
and despair seizes him.

On April 6, 1348, as the poet lies on his bed at
Verona, he beholds her in a vision, fair as spring, her
head crowned with orient pearls. It is the early morn-
ing when dreams are true,'* and even as Beatrice, in

' Sonnet xcviii. - Sonnet clxxvii.

•' Sonnets ccxi-ccxvi.

■* Quando del ver si sogna./i^frwo, XXVI. 7.

108

Fetrarch and haiira of Avignon

the vision of Purgatory, reproaches Dante, so Laura
relates her stor}', confesses her love, and reveals to her
weeping lover her attempts to lift him up from base
thoughts and curb his passions ; to hearten him to
virtuous deeds by her innocent artifices : he seeks to
justify himself, and she rises to anger. Petrarch pro-
tests that to live without her is grievous and hard ;
and he would know if he is to follow her quickly or
tardily. Turning to depart, she tells him he will
remain on earth without her a long space. ^ At
Parma, on May 19, a letter from Avignon brings the
fatal news : that very morning of April 6, when her
wraith appeared to him, Madonna died of the
plague. In a series of sonnets and canzoni he
bewails her loss. Death has loosed the fiery chains
of twenty-one years ; but Love, unwilling to re-
nounce his power over him, provides a new flame,
and sets yet another snare in the grass with a new
bait. Had it not been for the long experience of his
former woes he would have been caught again and
the more easily kindleti in that he was now of less green
wood. But Death, freeing him once again, broke
the bonds and quenched the flames, against which
neither strength nor wit avail.

How far the romantic loves of Petrarch and Laura
correspond to any reality we shall never know. It
will surprise no one who is familiar with the lives ot
the Troubadours or of their early Italian imitators,
not excluding Dante himself, to learn that during
two decades of amorous vicissitudes Laura was
probably a married lady and mother of a large
family ; that Petrarch became the father of a scape-

' Trionfo della Morte, Cap. II. Evidently composed some
time after her death. Petrarch, like Dante, always prophesies
after the event.

109

Avignon

grace illegitimate son, and that this was not the only
olive branch plucked from less rigorous mistresses.
Nor will it surprise him that the poet, in letters
to intimate friends, quotes with approval the lines
from Plautus that there are no good women, only
that some are worse than others,^ and that the reason
given to his friends for quitting Avignon in 1347
was his inability otherwise to rid himself of an impor-
tunate and jealous mistress who, many times repulsed,
always returned to besiege his door, day and night,
and scofted at his talk about leading in future a life of
celibacy, saying she knew him too well to be thus
deluded.- As in the breast of Faust in the tragedy,
so in Petrarch's — two conflicting souls contended
for mastery. One with mighty wrestlings and up-
strlvings towards celestial fields of divine ancestry :
the other holding on to earth with clinging organs
of sense. ^

Whatever real basis there may have been in the
passion that evoked the Rime of Petrarch, their actual
success was prodigious. All Europe was entranced
by them. Every one knew them by heart, and even
grave and venerable old men could not refrain from
reciting or singing them. Petrarch himself pro-
fessed to despise the poems as trivial effusions of his
youth, and in a letter to Pandolfo Malatesta, accom-
panying a copy of the Rime, he complains that, to his
sorrow, these immature follies in a vulgar tongue are
read more than the productions of his riper years :

1 DeReb. Fam., 1. IV. ep. iS,

- IbiJ., 1. IX. ep. T,.

^ Die eine halt in derber Liebeslust

Sick an die Welt mit klammernden Organen ;

Die andere hebt geivaltiam iich 'vum Dujt

Zu den Gejilden hoher Ahnen.

no

Petrarc/i and Laura of Avignon

he would they were forgotten ; but since they were
so widely diffused he had revised them, ill-becoming
though it were to concern himself in his old age with
past literary sins, for which he craves pardon of his
friends.^

Who, then, was the immortal Laura, best sung of
poet-lovers ? Many and conflicting are the claims
to her birthplace and her identity. She was born
at Avignon, Thor, Graveson, Cabricres, Lignes,
Gales, Caumont. She was the daughter of Paul de
Sade, of Henri Chabot, of the princely house of Les
Baux, of Pierre Isnard, of Audibert de Noves, and,
latest of theories,- of the house of Sabran of Mont-
dragon. Other theories are : that there were more
than one Laura, and that she never existed at all
save as a phantom of the poet's brain.

It is obvious that if the last can be maintained the
subject need not be pursued further. That Laura
was but a figment of Petrarch's imagination, an inven-
tion whereby the poet might exercise his muse and
that the only reality was his passion, not for a mortal
Laura, but for the immortal laurel crown of poetry,
is no new theory : early in the poet's career his
patron and friend the IJishop of Lombez roundly
accused him of such mystification.-^ No clue is to be
found in the poet's published works, and some hint
of there having been more than one Laura is afforded
by Canzone xix."* Less is known of Petrarch's
Laura than of Dante's Beatrice. Boccaccio, Ben-

' Rer.^en., XIII. lo.

^ F. Flamini : Tra Valchtma cd A-vignone. 1910.

« De Reb. Fam., II. 9.

•• He protests against the insinuation : he served for Rachel,
not for Leah. He would stay for Rachel, even if Elisha's
chariot were to call him to heaven with Leah. See also
Cesareo's Su le Poesie -vulgar i di Petrarca.

Ill

Avignon

venutoda Imola, nor other of Petrarch's friends ; nor
contemporary author, had the least suspicion who
Laura was ; none of the poet's biographers who
wrote immediately after his death mentions her
family name : everywhere a blank silence. Nor have
the acres of print published since the fourteenth
century availed to lift the veil that conceals her
identity. All that her lover tells us is that she lived
and died and was buried at Avignon, and that she
came of noble lineage. On the fly-leaf of the poet's
favourite copy of Virgil, at the back of a miniature by
Simone Memni, preserved at the Ambrosian Library
at Milan, may still be read, written by his own hand,
all that Petrarch has chosen to relate.^ " Laura, so
long celebrated by her own virtues and by our poems,
first appeared to my eyes in the time of my early
manhood in the Church of St. Clare at Avignon in
the year of Our Lord 1327, in the early morning of
the 6th day of the month of April ; and in the same
city, and in the same month of April, and on the
same 6th day, and at the same first hour of the day,
in the year 1348, this light was bereft of that light,
when I, alas, ignorant of my ill-fortune, was at
Verona : the ill-omened news reached me at Parma,
in the same year, on the morning of the 19th day of
the month of May. And on that same day of her
death, after vespers, her body, most chaste and
beautiful, was buried in the convent of the Friars
Minor, whose soul, as Seneca saith of Africanus, I
am persuaded hath returned to heaven whence she
came." Petrarch then proceeds to add that he has
written this thing of cruel memory, yet with some-
thing bitter-sweet in it, in a place which is often

^ See the authentic copy in Sade, Vol. II., Pieces JustiJicaU'ves,
VIII.

Petrarch and Laura of Avignon

before his eyes. That and <i few vague references to
her in the poet's ^ \\ orks is all that is known of
Petrarch's Laura. In the fifteenth century she was
very generally believed by Italians to be an allegory
— the Christian faith, philosophy, virtue, poetry —
a theory revived by D, G. Rossetti in the nineteenth
century, who out of Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's
Laura and Boccaccio's Fiammetta evolved a three-fold
personification of the Ghibelline movement for
national independence in Italy. Velutello, at the
opening of the sixteenth century, finding no one in
Italy who could give any information of Laura, made
a journey to Avignon, and to his amazement could
discover none but the vaguest and most conflicting
traditions as to her family name and almost complete
ignorance of Petrarch and his works. Foiled at
Avignon he repaired to V^aucluse and to Cabrieres,
and after three days' search found documentary refer-
ences to several Lauras, one of whom he decided
must be the Laura of Petrarch.

In 1533 Maurice de Scevc of Lyons, an admirer
of the poet, came to Avignon in further quest ot
Laura. Assisted by a Florentine gentleman, Messer
Jcronimo Manelli, and by the vicar of the Arch-
bishop of Avignon, vain search was made in
the cluirch registers of the County Venaissin and of
Avignon. It then occurred to the investigators to
search among the tombs in the church of the Friars
Minor at Avignon, and — so the story runs — they
were rewarded by the discovery of a big stone in the
Sade family chapel of Holy Cross without inscription
but with two almost effaced family escutcheons. The
stone was lifted, and beneath it lay some fragments of
bones {minute ossd) and a mysterious leaden box, closed

1 £/>. Poet., I. 7. V. 37-116. Secrctum, Dial. III.
I 113

Avignon

with brass wire, containing a parchment sealed with
green wax and a bronze medal with the initials
M.L.M.I., which letters Maurice interpreted to
mean Madonna Laura Morta lace. On the parchment
was written a sonnet in Italian which Maurice with
difficulty deciphered and of which a copy was taken :
the sonnet was attributed to Petrarch. Francis I,
on his way to Marseilles in September 1533, had
the vault reopened, read the sonnet, and the most
Christian king himself composed an epitaph in verse. ^
Neither has much literary merit : both may be read in
Appendix I. How it became possible to strike a medal
between morning and afternoon of April 6, and how
Petrarch, being at Parma when he first heard the
news on May 19, was able to compose the sonnet,
and how such could have been interred with a plague-
stricken body buried in quicklime six weeks previously,
was not, nor ever has been, satisfactorily explained.
Since that reputed discovery it was regarded as
proven that Laura was of the house of the Sades
of Avignon, and its publication made an end of
Velutello's theory.

From the visit of Francis I to its destruction under
the Revolution, " Laura's tomb " became the Mecca
of every sentimental traveller, and rivalled that of
Heloise and Abelard at Paris : " Laura's house," an
old weather-worn edifice of yellow stone, near the
Cordeliers and next the White Horse Inn, was shown
to every visitor to Avignon.

1 G. Boyle : Bulletm Historiqiie, Vols. II, III, IV. The
writer suggests the medal was a plague charm and that the letters
M.L.M.I. stand for the Evangelists, Matthew, Luke, Mark and
John. Much has been said of Catholic ignorance of the Bible :
the coiners of holy medals could, however, hardly have been
ignorant of the proper sequence of the Gospels.

114

Petrarch and Laura of Avignon

In 1764 appeared at Amsterdam the epoch-making
work of the Abbe de Sadc,^ and since that time the
identification of Petrarch's mistress with Laura de
Noves, who in January 1325 was married at Avignon
to Hugh, son of Paul de Sade, has been generally
accepted. The evidence is highly circumstantial, but
the abbe, by ignoring much that conflicts with his
conclusions, has woven a romantic story of the loves
of Petrarch and the wife of Hugh de Sade in three
massive tomes. The assumption that Laura was a
married lady rests on nothing more substantial than
an alternative reading of a passage in the ^ecretiim,
which would imply that Laura, at the time the
work was composed, was exhausted by several con-
finements.^ The over-zealous abbe, however, omits
the context, which rather favours the generally
accepted reading.

Mr. Bruce-Whytc, who has debased the idyllic
story of Laura and Petrarch to a vulgar episode of
seduction, identifies the poet's supposed victim with
a disinherited daughter of the House of the Sades of
Avignon 2 — a theory supported by Joudon, a native
of that city, in his H'lstoire dcs Papcs d"" Avignon. For
this graceless and impious libel there is less to be
said than for any of the rival theories, and no reason
exists for doubting Petrarch's assertion in his letter
to posterity that his early passion was an honourable
one.^ Francesco Petrarca was an exceedingly subtle
and ingenious Italian gentleman ; he evidently in-

^ Memoires pour la fir, etc.

^ Reading partuhiis instead of pei'turhationihtis. See Sade,
Vol. II. p. 1 14, ami nices jiistijtcati'ves, XIV ; E. C. Minguzzi :
Studio sul Secretum Ji Fr. Pctrarta, 1 906.

^1 Bruce-Whyte, Vol. III. p. xxxviii.

* Amore accerimo sed unico et honesto in adoloscentia lahora'vi,
Efist. ad Posteros.

12 lie

Avignon

tended the riddle should never be solved, and In this
he has been eminently successful. What, then, is
the conclusion of the whole matter ? Was Laura a
living daughter of Avignon ? Mistral was once asked
by an acquaintance of the present writer : " Did
Mireille really exist ? " To whom the great Proven9al
poet answered, smiling, Elle existalt : elle rCexistait
pas. Thus much and no more can be said of
Petrarch's Laura.

ii6

CHAPTER IX

PETRARCH AT VAUCLUSE RIENZI AGAIN DKATH OF

CLEMENT VI AND ELECTION OF INNOCENT VI

The two stormy decades of the passion for Laura
were intermingled with periods of halcyon calm and
of absorption in literary work at Vaucluse. In 1330,
three years after the fateful encounter in the church
of St. Clare, Petrarch, as we have seen, passed a
celestial summer and part of the autumn — the fairest
days of his life — with his friend Jacopo di Colonna,
Bishop of Lombez. In August 1333 he is at Lyons
dying for a sight of Madonna, but fears of summer
heat are stronger than love, and he dallies there a
month before descending the Rhone to Avignon.

In nothing does the heart of a modern warm
more towards Petrarch, in nothing does he better
deserve the title of the first of the moderns, than in
his love of wild nature, of romantic scenery, and the
solitude of woods and mountains. Petrarch, too,
was the first mountaineer ; the first to rise before
the dawn and make the toilsome ascent of a high
mountain — in order to come down again.

The most impressive feature of the magnificent
panorama that unfolds itself to the traveller who stands
on the Rocher des Doms is the isolated, massive dome
of Mont Ventoux, that stands like an advance post
in France guarding the approach to the Italian Alps.
It was in 1336 that Petrarch determined to climb

Petrarch at Vaucluse

the highest summit in the neighbourhood of Avignon,
and, like the good climber he was, his first thought
was to select a fitting companion. Reviewing the
capabilities of his friends, each in turn was rejected :
one was too slothful, another too active ; one walked
too fast, another too slow ; one was too sad, another
too gay ; one too silent, another too loquacious ; one
too fat and scant of breath, another too lean and
feeble. All were rejected in favour of his younger
brother Gerard, who was proud of the poet's con-
fidence and aflcction. The brothers left Avignon
and reached Malaucenc, at the foot of the mountain,
in the evening of April 24. Having rested a day,
they hired two porters, and began to climb with
exultant spirits the steep ascent, in the early dawn of
a lovely spring morning. Resting half-way up, they
met an old shepherd, who, as is the wont of shep-
herds, threw cold water on their enterprise, and told
them that fifty years ago he had clambered to the
top, and for his labour and pains brought back
naught but torn flesh and rent clothes : never before
nor since had he heard of any who had been foolish
enough to attempt the like. His warnings only fire
their ardour ; the climbers leave their coats in his
care, and, having been shown a short cut, press on.
Short cuts are delusive, and after much toil and wan-
dering the elder falls behind ; but for very shame, he
would more than once have turned back. He moral-
izes on the state of his soul, which, desiring heaven,
never takes the road thither, and on the weakness
of the body, which with difficulty attains an earthly
eminence. After surmounting some minor peaks they
at length reach the main summit, and, exhausted,
fling themselves on the breast of the father of all the
hills to rest. Refreshed by the rarefied and keen air,

119

Avignon

they rise ; the stupendous panorama that unfolds itself
to their gaze fills them with awe and wonder. The
sky is clear above them, the clouds lie beneath
their feet, and the Italian poet sighs as he beholds
afar the snow-capped mountains of his native land —
so far, but yet so near, for it seemed he could almost
touch them with outstretched hand. Again he muses
on his past life and present spiritual state ; he draws
his favourite and inseparable St. Augustine from his
pocket ; he blushes for his amorous weakness ; quotes
Ovid until his reverie is broken by the sight of the
declining sun. The brothers take a last look at the
immensity of their range of vision. The eye will not
carry to the Pyrenees, but there, in the west, must
be Spain ; to the right are the hills of the Lyonnais ;
to left, the waves of the Midland sea breaking against
Marseilles and Aigues Mortes ; the Rhone is be-
neath their feet. Again the poet is over-mastered
by emotion, for, as he takes the Confessions in his
hand and opens the book at a venture, his eyes fall
upon the words : " Men go forth to marvel at the
heights and mountains . . , and forsake their own
souls.' ^ After further reflections on the folly of
worldly men and the wisdom of the saints, he repeats
the well-known lines from Virgil, Felix qui potu'it, etc.,
and, aided by the friendly light of the moon, the
brothers descend and enter the welcome shelter ot
their inn. While supper is preparing Petrarch
retires to a room and pens the long letter to his
father-confessor from which we have condensed the
story. -

In 1337 the poet, revolted by the atmosphere ot
the papal court, and perhaps a little disappointed at
curial insensibility to his claims for beneficial favours,
^ Lib. X. 6. '^ De Reb. Fam., IV. 2.

Petrarch at Vaiiclus

turned his back on Avignon and withdrew to live
the simple life near the source of the Sorgue at
Vaucluse, whose romantic beauty had been impressed
on his mind since a boyish excursion he had made
thither in 1316. To a modest little house fit for a
Cato or a Fabricius, with no companion but a dog
given him by Cardinal Colonna,! living on hard rustic
fare and dressed like a peasant, figs, nuts, almonds,
and some fish from the Sorgue his sole luxuries, the
poet retired with his beloved books ; the only sounds
that greeted his ears in that sylvan solitude were
the songs of birds, the lowing of oxen, the bleating
of lambs, the murmuring of the stream. Like
Horace, he scorns gold and gems and ivory and
purple ; the only female face he looks upon is that ot
his stewardess and servant — a visage withered and
arid as a patch of the Libyan desert, and such that it
Helen had possessed it, Troy would yet be standing.
But her soul was as white as her body was black,
and her fidelity was imperturbable. By indomitable
industry she was able to attend to the poet's wants as
well as to those of her own household ; faring on
hard, dry, black bread, watered wine, sour as vinegar,
she lay on the bare ground, and would rise with the
dawn ; in the fiery heat of the dog-days, when the
very grasshoppers are overcome, her invincible little
body would never tire. Two small gardens the poet
had : one a shady Transalpine Helicon, sacred to
Apollo, overlooked the deep, mysterious, silent pool
where the Sorgue rises, beyond which there was nothing
save naked, barren, precipitous, trackless crags, in-
habited only by wild animals and birds — the like of
it could not be found under the sun. The other

^ The poet was a lover of dogs, and recites many curious
instances of their fidelity. Dc Reh. Fam., XII. 17.

121

Avignon

garden, better tilled and nearer his house, was bathed
by the crystal waters of the rapid Sorgue, and hard
by, separated by a rustic bridge from his house, was
a grotto whose cool shade and sweet retirement fos-
tered study ; there, in a little retreat, not unlike the
atr'tolo where Cicero was wont to declaim, the happy
recluse passed the hot afternoons in meditation ; in
the cool of the evening he roamed about the green
meadows, and in the morning rose early to climb the
hills. Were not Italy so far and Avignon so near
the poet could end his days there, fearing nothing so
much as the return to a town.^

Dear friends, too, are not lacking. The cultured
Philip of Cabassoles, Bishop of Cavaillon, dwells in the
chateau that crowns the hill above his hermitage, and
the great ones of the earth are pleased to seek him in
his rustic home. The island garden of the Sorgue
gave incessant trouble. Writing to Guglielmo di
Pastrengo, the studious recluse recalls the stony patch
of ground his friend helped to clear with his own
hands, and informs him, the once barren waste is
now enamelled with flowers, rebellious nature having
been subdued by human toil.- In a charming epistle,
in Latin verse, to Cardinal Colonna, Petrarch tells ot
the fierce frontier wars he urged with the naiads
of the Sorgue in order to recover possession of the
garden which he had usurped from them and which
they had reconquered during his absence in Italy.
By dint of strenuous labour he had cleared a stony
patch of land and planted there a little green meadow,
as a retreat for the Muses. The nymphs, taking it ill
that he should establish strangers in their territory
and prefer nine old maids to a thousand young virgins,
rushed furiously down the mountain to ravage and

1 De Reb. Fam., XIII. 8. 2 Carm., III. 3.

I 22

Petrarch at Vaucluse

destroy his budding garden ; he retires terrified, but,
the storm passed, he returns shamefacedly and restores
the desolated land to its former verdure. Scarce had the
sun run his course when the furious nymphs return, and
once more undo all his labour. Again he prepares to
restore the evicted Muses, but is called away to foreign
parts. After six years he returns to his solitude: not
a vestige remains of his handiwork, and fish swim at
their ease over the site of his garden. Grief gives him
arms, and anger, strength ; he calls to his aid the
peasant, the shepherd, the fisherman ; together the
allies roll away great stones and tear out the entrails
of the earth ; they chase forth the invading nymphs ;
with Phoebus's help re-establish the sacred Muses
in their place and build them an abiding temple.
The enemy retires breathing vengeance and awaits
the help of the winter floods and storms ; but the
victorious champion of the Muses is prepared ; he
defends his conquest by a rocky rampart and defies
the fury of the nymphs. Now will he enjoy a last-
ing peace and fear no foes ; not even were they
allied to the waters of the Po and the Araxes.^ His
triumph was, however, short-lived, for we learn from
a further letter that with their allies, the winter floods,
the naiads of the spring gained a final victory, and
the defeated Petrarch was forced to lodge the Muses
in another spot.

The poet always found solace and refreshment in
his gardens. A true lover of horticulture, he cultivates
exotics, experiments on soils and plants, and writes to
Naples for peach and pear trees. He invites the Arch-
deacon of Genoa to his dwelling, happy, celestial and
angelic ; to the silence and liberty of his grateful
solitude ; he will find secure joy and joyful security,

' Car w., III. E it ml hi cum nymphis helium de Jinihus ingens.

123

Avignon

instead of the noise and strife of cities ; he shall
listen to the nocturnal plaints of Philomela, and the
turtle-dove cooing for her mate.i

He bids the convalescent Bishop of Viterbo find
health of body and serenity of mind in the soft and
balmy air of Vaucluse. There in the warm sun, by
the crystal fountain, in umbrageous woods and green
pastures, he shall experience the delights of Paradise
as described by theologians, or the charms of the
Elysian fields as sung by poets ; a good supply of
books and the society of faithful friends shall not
be lacking. 2

It was in 1339, while wandering about the hills
and vales of Vaucluse, that the life of Scipio Africanus
occurred to him as a fit subject for a great epic poem.
Scipio had been the hero of his youth, and he set to
work with feverish anxiety to compose the Africce, a
work which should form his title-deed to immortality.
In a year it was almost completed — a year of pas-
sionate industry which affected even his splendid
constitution and gave occasion for a friendly plot to
enforce change and rest. One whom he regarded as
the dearest and most exalted of his friends called on
a day and unexpectedly craved a favour : this being
freely granted, the friend asked for the keys of his
book-case and desk, and, when they were handed
over, locked up the poet's books and all his writing
materials and bade him take a ten days' holiday,
exacting a promise that he would neither open a book
nor put pen to paper during that period. Petrarch
promised to obey. The first day dragged its slow
length along in utter boredom and seemed longer
than a year ; the second day the poet suffered from

1 De Reb. Fam., XVII. ep. 5. - Ibid., XVI. ep. 6.

124

Petrarch at Vauchisc

headache from morn to eve, and on the third day
symptoms of fever declared themselves. Whereupon
the friend, grasping the situation, absolved him from
his promise, restored the keys and health and spirits
to the unhappy poet, who protested that paper, pen
and ink and nightly vigils were dearer to him than
sleep and rest.^ It was at Vaucluse that the sweetest
of Italian lyrics, Chiare,freschc e dolci acque^" was com-
posed, and that nearly the whole of his works were
cither written, begun or conceived, and where on one
and the same day, August 23, 1340, two letters
reached him, the first at nine in the morning, from
the Senate of Rome ; the second at five in the after-
noon from the University of Paris, inviting him to
their respective cities to receive the laurel crown of
poetry. This had ever been the goal of his earthly
ambition ; "^ in his happy perplexity, the poet wrote
the same afternoon to Cardinal Colonna, enclosing
the letters, and received his answer before nine
o'clock the next morning. Needless to say the Roman
patrician decided for Rome,* and in February 1341
Petrarch sailed from Marseilles to visit his patron.
King Robert of Naples, on his way to the Eternal
City, where, after having fallen into the hands of
robbers by the way, he was crowned with laurel at
the Capitol on Easter Day of the same year.

In 1342 the wanderer was again at his beloved
\'aucluse, writing the Secretum, where in the form
of a dialogue with St. Augustine, the poet, with
pitiless self-revelation lays bare the inmost secrets
of his soul, and, playing the part of devil's advocate
to himself, exposes with cold, relentless logic the
hollow sophistries wherewith he has sought to lull

' De Rib. Fam., XIII. 7. " Canzone xiv.

* Epis!. aJ. Posteros. •* De Reb. Fam., IV. 4 an.l 5.

Avignon

his accusing conscience and to cloak his passion for
Love and Fame. After an unsuccessful embassy to
the court of the beautiful and tarnished queen Joan
of Naples in 1343, and a sojourn at Parma, the
peace of the closed valley again draws him to his
hermitage, and in 1346 he composes there the now-
forgotten, but once popular, Vita Solltaria.

In I 347, however, the echoes of thunderous events
at Rome crashed in upon the poet's solitude, and again
he was drawn into the vortex of European politics.

We left Rienzi on his way from Avignon to Rome,
breathing forth threatenings and nursing schemes ot
mighty change. His first encounter with the " dogs
of the Capitol " was not auspicious. Rising in the
council chamber, in an impassioned oration he
vehemently attacked the noble senators : " Ye are
not good citizens," he cried, " Ye, who drink the
blood of poor folk, and will not aid them." For
answer, one of the Colonna rose from his seat and
smote the orator a sounding cuff on the cheek for his
insolence, and a scrivener made a mocking gesture : ^
such, says the chronicler, was the end of his fine
speech. But it was not the end of Cola. His heart
aflame with indignation, he brooded over the days
of the noble senators of ancient Rome and of their
high justice. 7"he spell of her historic grandeur and
dreams of her universal mission, which, from Dante
to Mazzini, run like a thread of gold through Italian
history, possessed his mind, already charged with the
poetic imagery and flamboyant rhetoric of Petrarch
at Avignon. This is not the place to recite the
story of the most amazing revolution ever wrought
by youthful enthusiasm — a revolution unstained by
civic blood, and, for a brief space, directed with rare

^ Feceli la coda. Muratori: Anti'j.^ Vol. III. p. 401.
126

Rienzi again

wisdom and courage. By just laws, impartially but
rigidly administered, the Liberator inaugurated a
reign of peace and order ; a horrible fear fell on
evil-doers ; truculent barons were banished to their
estates ; thieves, assassins and malefactors were cowed ;
the citizens returned to orderly civic life ; the fields
were ploughed and sown again, and a profound sigh ot
relief went up from the land. The Tribune hanged
lawless knights on gibbets before the Capitol ; he
beheaded a Cistercian monk for his crimes ; dragged
the lord of Porto from his bed and strung him up
in sight of his lad)' ; not even the frowning strong-
hold of a Colonna could shield a thief from the
gallows, and the terror of Rienzi's name reached even
the Sultan of Babylon.^ Embassies from the States
of Italy, from great European rulers, thronged the
halls of the dictator's palace, seeking his alliance
or craving the arbitrament of his wisdom. Petrarch
lent his potent pen ; his letter to the Roman people
is a pa;an of victory. Rienzi is a new Brutus, and
both Tribune and people he exhorts to rise to the
magnitude of their mission. " From the Capitol, on
July 28, 1347, in the reign of justice, where we live
with an upright heart," came the equally eloquent
and exultant response to Avignon from " Nicolaus,
Miles skverus kt clkmens. Liberator Urbis, Zelator
Itai.i.^, Amator Urbis et Tribunus Augustus, to
our most virtuous and illustrious fellow-citizen, and
most worthy Poet Laureate, to whom salutation
and honour and full joy." Copies of this and other
epistles were quickly anci sedulously made ; they
circulated in the papal court and among the citizens
of Avignon ; they were devoured with avidity and
curiosity, as if they had been sent, not by a man of
1 Old Cairo.

Aijignon

our race, but by celestial beings or dwellers in the
antipodes.^ Never did words of Delphic oracle
excite more comment. As messenger after messenger
came to the eager cardinals and burgesses at Avignon,
Petrarch's joys and fears increased. In the fervour of
his imagination he seemed to be in the thick of the
great battle which was to bring victory or defeat to
the noble cause. Day and night he is absorbed with
anxiety and cares ; sleeping and waking he is in
travail ; in a prophetic vision he beholds his hero
enthroned on high, his head amid the stars, more
sublime than the radiant sun ; so much more august
and more refulgent was he than mortal man, that
PhcEbus himself envied him. Below, stood expectant,
such a multitude of the nations of the earth that the
seer almost swooned with amazement at their number.
The poet hopes and believes his hero will be worthy
of his awful responsibility.- In yet another and
lengthy hortatory epistle, Petrarch lavishes his classical
erudition and burning eloquence in a further appeal to
this our younger Brutus ; may he have the elder Brutus
ever before his eyes. He warns him of the manifold
perils amid which he moves ; bids him beware of
traitors and flatterers and the evil passions of men ;
he hails him our Camillus, our Brutus, our Romulus,
author of Roman Liberty, Roman Peace and Roman
Tranquillity : ^ and to Rienzi was probably addressed
that most beautiful among Italian lyrics, the canzone
Bp'into GcntU.^

Meanwhile the miraculous revolution appears to
have wrought a moral, no less than a political,
change at Rome. The market-place was trans-

1 Var. Epht., XXXVIir. - Var., XL.

^ /ar., XLVIII. The letter fills sixteen pages in Fracassetti.

■* See Le Rime, ed. by Carducci and Ferranti.

128

Rtetrzi again

formed into ;i Palace of TrutJi ; the fislimongcrs
and butchers, reputed the greatest rascals in Chris-
tendom, no longer cheated ; the fishmongers cried
stinking fish ; ^ the butchers said, this meat is
venison, this is kid, this is pork.

But, on the giddy heights of power, Cola's head
failed him, and overweening pride wrought his fall.
At the solemn mass sung in his new chapel at the
Capitol he sat enthroned, his fair young wife by
iiis side, in dazzling splendour, and in the presence
of the pope's vicar in whose name the revolution
had been made. Amid the blaze of a thousand tapers
and the swelling chorus of white-robed choristers,
the annalist beheld the cowed barons standing before
the dread Tribune, bareheaded and with drooping
arms. Deh ! Come stavan paurosi ! Cola surrounded
himself with more than regal pomp ; he bathed in the
porphyry vase wherein Constantine w^as cleansed of
his leprosy, and, robed in the imperial Dalmatic, with
the crown of Charlemagne on his brow, terribile e
fantastico, he flouted the papal legate. With amazing
ineptitude iic decoyed the chief nobles into his
power, ignominiously and treacherously flung them
into prison, and made public preparations for their
execution : then, having humiliated and terrorized
them, thought to win their gratitude by feasting
and setting them free. Infuriated, they sank their
differences and combined to attack him, only, how-
ever, to meet, on November 20, a bloody defeat and
to emphasize an insolent triumph. The victorious
Tribune, boasting he had cropped the ears of heads
that pope and emperor had feared to touch, led his
son to the stricken field, and, asperging him with

' They said, Qttesso pescie e--e buono : quesso ene rio. Muratori
Vol. III. i. p. 445.

K 129

Avignon

water ensanguined with the Colonna's blood, hailed
him Cavalier della Vittor'ui.

Meanwhile, the enthusiastic Petrarch had left
Vaucluse for Rome : on November 26 news reached
him at Genoa of his hero's folly. He addressed to
the intoxicated dictator a heart-rending letter of
protest and reproach ; and expressed his bitter dis-
appointment that one in whom he had trusted, as the
sheet-anchor of the righteous, should have wrecked the
noble cause and become the satellite of the wicked :
if what he heard were true, then a long farewell to
Rome.^ The heart-broken poet turned aside and
took possession of his canonry at Parma. The golden
age at Rome was of brief duration, and before the
end of the year (1347) the once exalted and terrible
dictator slunk out of Rome an excommunicated and
discredited fugitive.

The unquiet spirit of Petrarch found no abiding
place in Italy, and in the summer of 1351 he
once more crossed the threshold of his Vauclusian
retreat. He had resolved never to return, but the
desire to revisit the hills, the vales, the caves, the
woods, the mossy banks of the Sorgue so familiar
to his youth, became irresistible. Disappointed, dis-
illusioned, its sweet memories well up in his soul,
and he seeks a solitude where he may live inglorious
and unknown. An unquenchable longing seizes him
to behold again the garden made by his own hands,
to enjoy the things he loves best — liberty, leisure,
tranquillity, solitude — to caress his books again, to
release them from their four years' imprisonment and
let them meet their master's gaze. He will make a
compact with his eyes : six hours' sleep they shall
have and no more ; tv\o hours shall be assigned to
1 De Rf/'. Fam., XI. I 2.
130

Rienzi aga'm

bodily needs and sixteen to meditation and com-
position. How dearly the poet loved his sylvan
solitude may be seen by comparing the number of
his intimate letters addressed from the " Source of the
Sorgue " with those from the " Rivers of Babylon "
or " Babylon." i

A charming picture, too, is that drawn by the
recluse of his faithful old bailift" and rustic librarian,
Raymond Monet, husband of the stewardess and
servant, of whom mention has already been made.
To him, faithfullest of servants, the poet always
confided his books when absent from Vaucluse.
Returning from his longest travels not a book, not
a paper, but was in its place, for although illiterate,
Raymond was a great friend of literature, and pre-
served most tenderly his master's best-loved books :
unable to read, he yet by long habit knew the titles
of the old classics and could distinguish the poet's
own works. When a book was placed in his hands
he rejoiced and pressed it, sighing, against his breast ;
at times he would repeat the author's name in a low
voice, and m'lrum dictu only by the mere handling or
looking at books he seemed to grow more learned
and more happ)'. Fifteen years the poet passed with
this admirable servant, whose cottage he entered as
though it were a temple of good faith; he confided
to him his most secret thoughts, as to a priest of
Ceres. Raymond died during his master's temporary
absence at Avignon in 1353, and the poet's sorrow is
expressed in one of the most touching of the familiar
letters.-

In 1352 Petrarch beheld with furious indignation
the once formidable Tribune of Rome, who had

' Ad Jontem Sor^iae ; sufer Jiumina Ba/'jluiiis j Bal>ylui,e, etc.
2 De Reb. Fam.,^\V\. i.

K 2 131

Avignon

appalled the wicked and filled the good with joyous
hope ; who went about attended by the whole Roman
people and the envoys of the States of Italy, enter
Avignon like a common burglar, captive between two
archers of the Imperial guard, while the crowd
pressed round to gaze on the face of him whose fame
had filled the world, and who was now sent by a
Roman emperor to answer for his life to a Roman
pontiff. And, adds the poet bitterly, our Pontifex
Maximus appointed three princes of the Church to
adjudge what penalty should be inflicted on him
whose only crime was a desire to free the Roman
republic from anarchy and oppression.^ Petrarch
neither denied nor apologized for his confidence in
Cola di Rienzi ; he bewailed his enthusiasm quenched,
and his best hopes for Italy deceived. Cola's first
demand at Avignon was for the intercession of his
former friend ; but what could it avail ? The
captive was accused, not of having fallen short of his
exalted mission ; not of having tarnished his name
with pride and folly and cowardice ; not of having
betrayed the good and the free and sunk in the mire
with the wicked and vile : no, he was accused of
what had constituted his highest glory — that he had
dared to dream of the freedom and salvation of
Rome. It was the high and noble beginning they
pursued him for ; not the base and ignoble end.-
As the poet, in his solitude at Vaucluse, brooded
over the vicissitudes of the fallen Tribune his old
friendship revived, and something akin to pity over-
came him : Rienzi's appeal to be tried by the ordi-
nary courts and to be allowed a legal defender was
refused, and in his indignation Petrarch wrote a

1 De Reb. Fam., VII. 7. " Ihid., XIII. 6.

132

Renizi a^ain

passionate appeal to the Roman people, imploring
them not to forsake their unhappy Tribune, but to
demand his extradition to Rome, or at least a fair trial
at Avignon.^

Rienzi, according to his biographer, was chained
by the leg to the vaulting of the roof of a chamber in
a tower of the papal palace,-' wlicre he was fed from
the pope's table and furnished with his favourite
books — his Livy, his Roman Histories and his Bible.
The Roman annalist is, however, not well informed
of events at Avignon, and there can be small doubt
that Rienzi was well treated as a political prisoner.
Papal accounts prove that on August 14, 1352, the
cubicularius, Mcssire Stefano Priozzi, purchased a bed
for the Tribune; on October 21 the papal sergeant-
at-arms, in whose charge he was, provided him with
a quilt bought of the Jews and three pairs of new
stockings, for the darning of which he also paid. Items
also appear for payment of the barber who dressed
his hair."* These are not the bodily needs of a
prisoner chained to a dungeon vault.

The Tribune's old eloquence and subtlety did not
fail him at Avignon : he successfully defended him-
self from the various counts in the indictment brought
against him ; he cleared himself of the charge of
heresy ; he was set at liberty as a faithful Christian,
and even regained Clement's favour.

With all his love of solitude Petrarch did not
wholly sever himself from the larger life of Avignon,

1 Ep. Sine Titu/o, IV.

- Traditionally believed to be the Tour do Trouillas. Mum-
tori, Vol. III. p. 513.

•* Notes sur la detention tie Rienzi. M. Faucon, Ecole Franjaise
de Rome ; Melanges d'Archcologie, etc. Annee, Vol. VII.
PP- 56, 57-

Avignon

He was a frequent visitor there, staying either at the
Colonna palace or at the Falcon Inn, and never free
from one of the minor irritations of literary fame.
From the four quarters of the world he was flooded
with letters asking his counsel and enclosing poems
for revision. There was an epidemic of writing, he
complained; even rude mechanics were infected with
the madness for composition ; carpenters and fullers
abandoned their tools, the peasant forsook his plough,
to court Apollo and the Muses. He could find no
peace at home, and scarce had he crossed his threshold
when he was assailed by a crowd of questioners and
disputants. Happily Vaucluse was free from the con-
tagion.^ It was with no small regret, therefore, that
in August 1352 he was commanded by two influential
cardinals to attend the papal court at Avignon to
receive an offer of the important and coveted post of
papal secretary. With tears he implored to be left
in his retirement, for a yoke of silver would weigh
on him as heavily as a yoke of lead ; but the offer
was equivalent to a command, and so he came to the
feet of him "who opens heaven with his finger and
rules the stars with his crown." Clement VI received
him graciously, and the poet was bending to the
yoke when good fortune came to his aid. His Latin
style was deemed too elevated for the humility of
one who wrote himself Servant of the Servants of
God ; he was requested to clip his epistolary wings,
and, to his amazement, to submit like a schoolboy a
specimen composition for approval. The greatest of
Humanists, whose Latin was said by a chancellor of
Florence to be superior to that of Cicero and Virgil,
grew furious. Calling on Apollo and the Nine to

1 De Reb. Fan,., XIII. 7.

FctrarcJi s Fai-civell to Van cl use

lend their aid, and winging his loftiest flight, he
indited to the Curia an epistle that was as incompre-
hensible as Greek to those who tried to read it : ^
he was never asked by Clement again to act as scribe
to the Servant of the Servants of God, and he re-
turned with joyful heart to his books and to the
study of divine philosophy at Vaucluse. Exulting
in freedom he prevents the dawn, and rising at mid-
night roams the hills and vales, studying in the open
air as well as in his cabinet ; he reads, he writes, he
dreams ; drives sleep from his eyes and chastises his
body. Athens and Rome are in his hermitage, and
were it not for windy Avignon and the turbid Rhone
he would never leave the Closed Valley again. ^ But
" man never is, but always to be, blest." At Vaucluse
Petrarch yearns for his native Italy, in Italy he yearns
for Vaucluse ; the hateful proximity of the papal
court and his own unquiet breast urge him forth again.
In November i 352, with a precious train of books,
he starts for Italy, but fares no further than Cavaillon,
where, held up by rains and fear of brigands, he
takes shelter with his best of friends, Bishop Philip
of Cabassoles, whom he regards as an angel of God
rather than a mortal man. Some tortured nights of
sleepless indecision, and he retraces his steps to
Vaucluse. On April 19, 1353, irritated by suspi-
cions at the Curia of his familiarity with the Black
Art, he leaves to pay a fiirewell visit to his brother,
now a Carthusian monk at Montrieux ; and, as he
journeys, behold he encounters a numerous company
of ladies, and voices speaking the sweet Italian tongue
fall pleasantly on his ear. With quickening pulse he
hastens to address them, and learns they are Roman

1 Dc Rcb. Fum., XIII. 5. '^ Ibi,l, XV. V

135

Avignon

pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. James at
Compostela : on being asked if he, too, is a Roman,
the wanderer answers that no one has a more Roman
heart than he. Then, as the spirits in Purgatory
pressed towards Dante, the pilgrims surround him,
and he pours forth a thousand questions concerning
his Roman friends and the republic. He offers
service and money to further their journey : gently
they refuse, and ask but for his prayers to Christ for
their safe return to their earthly habitation, and, at
the long last, a happy entrance to the City of God,
their celestial home. The noble and disinterested
reply of these Roman matrons kindles the poet's love
for Italy. " I thought," writes he, " I was with
Cecilia Metella, with Cato's mother, the Emilia of
Africanus and the mother of the Gracchi " : then,
with a suspicion that his heroines are too exclusively
pagan, the great Humanist adds, "or rather with
Prisca, Prudentia, Cecilia, Agnes and the Roman
Virgin martyrs for Christ." ^ The yearning for
Italy thus stirred in his breast, Petrarch, in May, set
forth across the Alps : as the poet descended the
slopes of Mont Genevre, with the fair Italian lands
spread out beneath him, he burst forth into exultant
song, Sahe cam Deo tellus!'^ Neither Avignon nor
Vaucluse ever saw him more. On Christmas Day,
thieves, after looting the Vauclusian sanctuary, set it
on fire, and Raymond's son with difficulty saved its
precious treasury of books and carried them to the
chateau of Philip of Cabassoles.

And Laura! What of her during this score ot
strenuous years ? Our voluminous heritage of Familiar
Letters is silent. Secretum meum niihi.

1 De Reb. Fam., XVI. S.

2 Carm., III. 24. «« All hail thou land, beloved of God ! "

136

Death of Clement VI

On December 6, 1352, Clement V'l. died suddenly
in his chamberlain's arms, and was temporarily buried
in a magnificent tomb in his private chapel at Notre
Dame de Villeneuve, pending translation to a final
resting-place at Chaise Dieu. How well this gener-
ous pope stood with contemporary clerical scribes
may be seen by the fulsome eulogies lavished on his
memory by the author of the fifth life in Baluze.^
None of the Avignon pontiffs has left a more en-
during mark on the architecture of the papal city,
and his shield may still be seen on the great palace
he did so much to extend and adorn. He enlarged
and embellished the Dominican friary ; repaired the
Rhone bridge and rebuilt four of its arches ; he
restored the church of St. John Lateran and many
others at Rome. Clement's charity to the poor and
to imprisoned debtors was unbounded ; he was
tolerant to the Jews, and did his best to protect
them from Christian fanaticism."

No time was lost in filling the vacant chair, for
the cardinals, hearing that King John of France was
on his way to Avignon, hastened to conclave, and
twelve days after Clement's death. Cardinal Stephen
d'Albert, a Limousin, was chosen to pilot the storm-
tossed bark of Peter. The troubled waters of Italian
affairs were growing ever more turbid as the estab-
lishment of the papacy at Avignon became regarded
as a settled policy of the French crown. Of the
twelve cardinals created in December 1350, nine
were French, four being related to Clement. The
Gallic Curia neither understood nor was competent
to grapple with the hideous anarchy that was delug-

^ Vol. I. p. 500.

- They were accused of spreading the plague by poisoning the
wells.

Avignon

ing half the peninsula with blood. Benedict XII in
1340 had complained to the Florentine ambassador
that Italian affairs were hopelessly entangled, and
that the Italians themselves were always changing
their minds : one day they demanded one thing and
the next day another.^ Too feeble and too depend-
ent to dominate the situation, the Gallic popes sought
to achieve their ends by intriguing with emperors
and kings, with republics and with despots, and it
was at Avignon that the filthiest brew in the cauldron
of European politics was stirred. Since the down-
fall of Ricnzi no arm had been powerful enough to
bring order into the chaos that ensued at Rome.
The victorious senatorial factions which had been
reinstated by the papal legate could unite to plot
reaction, not to govern. The old evils returned ;
brigandage, rapine, assassination, made the citizens
regret the brief months of the Tribune's reign.
Alarming news from the banks of the Tiber reached
Avignon, and towards the end of 135 i Clement had
appointed an advisory council of four cardinals to
deal with Roman afi"airs. Their first act was to ask
counsel of a poet. Petrarca, then in Avignon,
still cherished his republican ideals, and in two elo-
quent and fervent epistles advocated the banishment
of the nobles and the foundation of a citizen re-
public.'^ Trouble, too, had arisen on the north of
the peninsula. Giovanni Visconti, despot of Milan,
had seized the papal state of Bologna, and aimed at
winning the hegemony of Italy, employing the

^ Dixit quod facta ytalicorum sunt mutabile multum ct unum
hodie appetunt ct a'iud postea successi-ve. Lettere degli Ambasc.
fior. alia Corte de' Papi in Avignone. Archiv. Stor. Ital.,
Vol. XIV., 1884, p. 169.

2 DeReh. Fam., XI. 16 and 17,

Election of Innocent J^I

legions of the golden lily at Avignon no less effec-
tively in corrupting the Curia than the potent arms
of successful condottieri in the field. One after
another the papal States had thrown oft" their alleg-
iance and fallen into the hands of usurpers, and the
new pontiff", Innocent VI, turned in his need to one
of the most commanding figures in the Church Mili-
tant, the Spanish Cardinal Alhornoz, who had fought
at Tarifa, and clespatched him as legate to Italy with
a powerful army to recover the lands of the Church
from the hands of tyrants. In four years Alhornoz
changeti the whole face of Italy. Equally successful in
diplomacy and in the field, he returned to Avignon,
and was accorded a reception more magnificent than
any ever lavished on emperor or king. Rienzi's star
was again in the ascendant. Elevated to the senatorial
dignity by the cardinal legate, he entered Rome in
the summer of 1354 '^^ '^'^^ head of a mercenary
army : welcomed by its fickle inhabitants with tumul-
tuous joy, and clad in scarlet and ermine and silver
and gold, he marched through triumphal arches,
like another Scipio Africanus, to the Capitol. But
the story of Cola di Rienzi's brief and shameful reign
of terror at Rome, his cruel and ghastly end, is a
thrice-told talc and need not detain us here. The
true significance of the Tribune's dramatic career
lies not so much in the meteoric nature of his rise
and fall, not in any miraculous ability it postulates
in him, but rather in tlie hideous misrule and appalling
anarchy which made that career possible.

139

CHAPTER X

QUEEN JOAN OF NAPLES SALE OF AVIGNON TO THE

PAPACY

Another of the great historic figures that strut
their hour on the little stage of Avignon is the
beautiful Joan of Naples, the Mary Stuart of the
south. The disastrous policy of subdividing a king-
dom among several children, like so much real property,
that had wrecked the Merovingian and Carlovingian
dynasties, was now to leave a bloody heritage to the
descendants of the Angevin house. Charles II of
Anjou,who had married Maria of Hungary, willed the
crown of that realm to Carobert,heirof Charles Martel,
his eldest son, who had predeceased him; to Robert,his
third son, he bequeathed the kingdoms of Naples and
of the lost Sicily, the titulary kingdom of Jerusalem,
and the duchies of Provence, Forcalquier and Pied-
mont ; carving out, however, large slices of the
kingdom of Naples to provide patrimonies for his
fourth and fifth sons, Philip, Prince of Taranto, and
John, Duke of Durazzo. Carobert, on his succession
to the throne of Hungary, basing his claim on the
inalienable right of the eldest son to inherit his
father's whole dominions, appealed to Avignon against
the partition ; but Robert was a renowned soldier, a
faithful servant of Holy Church and stout protagonist
of her claims in Italy : the will was upheld by
Clement V, and Robert affirmed in his position ot

140

Queen Joan of Naples

king of the two Sicilies. ^ In 1328, the Duke of
Calabria, Robert's only son and heir to the throne,
died, leaving two daughters, Joan and Maria, the
former of whom Robert named heiress to the
throne : in 1331, being three years of age, allegiance
was sworn to her at Naples, Carobert of Hungary
protesting and still asserting his prior right to the
crown. In 1333 King Robert, on the advice of
Pope John XXII, proposed an alliance between
Andrew, second son of Carobert of Hungary, and his
granddaughter Joan, in order to unite the conflicting
claims of the two branches of the Angevin house :
Carobert accepted, and in the same year, himself
brought Prince Andrew to Naples, where with great
pomp and magnificence he was affianced to Joan, the
child bride and bridegroom being seven and five
years of age respectively. It was stipulated, that if
Joan died before the consummation of the marriage,
Andrew should be united to Maria : if Andrew died,
Joan was to wed another of Carobert's sons ; if both
died, Carobert's third son, Stephen, was to marry
Maria. In certain eventualities Robert also desired
that Louis, Carobert's eldest son and heir to the
throne of Hungary, should marry Maria.

Cunningly contrived as this family compact may
have seemed to the contracting seniors, there were
others who regarded the arrangement with less
approving eyes. The Princess of Taranto and the
Duchess of Durazzo, ambitious mothers with sons to
advance, now saw their children excluded from any
hope of winning the hands of their cousins, Joan and
Maria, and from any possibility of gaining the crown
of the two Sicilies.

King Robert, for some inscrutable reason surnamcd
^ Naples and Sicily.

Avignon

the Wise, imagining that constant familiarity, instead
of indifference, would engender affection, retained
Prince Andrew at Naples to be educated at that
polished and luxurious court and fitted for his exalted
station. Now Joan, Andrew's senior by eighteen
months, a brilliant, precocious and critical girl of
alert intelligence, trained in all the varied accom-
plishments of the most refined court of Europe, soon
found herself ill-mated with the dull and backward
Hungarian prince, who was surrounded by a suite
of rude, coarse-minded Magyars from a court the
Neapolitans regarded as semi-barbarian : in her
advance to maidenhood the high-spirited Joan made
no secret of her growing aversion, and even went so
far as to snub her affianced husband in open court.

Among the gallant young princes who crowded the
court of Naples — a court gay, licentious and corrupt,
with all its veneer of learning and devotion — and
who flattered Joan's beauty, while treating with con-
tumely the Hungarian prince and his boorish suite,
was the handsome, brave and accomplished Prince
Louis, son of the widowed Princess of Taranto : for
him Joan openly displayed her admiration, and to
Maria the young Duke of Durazzo proved no less
attractive. Thus did Love make mockery of bonds
and parchments and curial and parental sagacity.

The mothers of the two favoured young princes,
furious at seeing their progeny fenced off from regal
ambitions by the double claim of the house of Hungary,
made the Neapolitan court a hotbed of intrigue,
while Fra Rupert, Andrew's confessor and guardian,
was busily plotting to further his ward's cause :
other collateral interests complicated the situation,
and made a pretty tangle of hostile passions which the
fates were not slow to draw out to tragic issues.

142

Queen Joan of Naples

In August 1342, Joan being in the seventeenth
year of her age and in the full flower of her marvel-
lous southern beauty, and Andrew just turned fifteen,
the ill-omcncd marriage was consummated. On his
father's death in July of the same year Louis of
Hungary ascended the throne, and on January 19 of
the ensuing year King Robert died, having named
Joan his universal heiress, and emphasized Andrew's
galling subordination by creating him Duke of Salerno.
Joan's majority was fixed at twenty-five years of age,
and during her minority a regency was appointed.

In March 1343 the Duchess of Durazzo, with the
connivance of Clement VI, abducted Maria of Naples
and married her to her son Charles, and the following
year Cardinal Aimeric, the papal legate, formally
invested Joan with the crown of the Sicilies and
received her homage on behalf of the Holy See —
Andrew, with his confessor and suite, looking sullenly
on as mere spectators. As the public coronation
approached, the Hungarian party contrived to gain
the consent of Clement by an enormous bribe to a
double coronation which should elevate Andrew's
status to that of king consort. The date appointed
for the ceremony at Naples was September 20, 1345,
and on the l8th, the eve of the departure from the
royal summer residence at Aversa, where the court
t'len sat, a sumptuous banquet was provided. Some
time after midnight, Andrew, having entered the
queen's chamber,' was in the act of undressing when
a messenger arrived In hot haste from Naples and
knocked at the door : urgent state affairs demanded
his presence. Hastily re-dressIng, Andrew entered
the pass.age leading from the chamber : the door was
locked behind him, the doomed lad seized, gagged
and hanged outside a balcony, the conspirators pulling

143

Avignon

at his feet the more effectually to throttle him. The
body, hideously mutilated, was then flung into the
garden. Thus died unhappy Andrew of Hungary in
the nineteenth year of his age, his queen being six
months with child.

Was Joan privy to this foul murder ? History
answers with uncertain voice, and annalists and poets
have convicted and exonerated her as the fascination
of her beauty, or party passion, has dictated.
Villani, who heard the story from his brother at
Florence, to whom it was related by Andrew's tutor
as he passed through the city, believed her guilty ; so
do the local chronicler Domenico di Gravina, the
Hungarian historians, and Muratori. Petrarch, her
father's friend, who, seeing her at Naples in 1343,
had become her ardent admirer and domestic chap-
lain, believed her innocent, as did also Boccaccio and
Clement VI. Nostredamus, the historian of Pro-
vence, says that divers persons having written diversely,
he, in inculpating the queen, relies on authentic and
veritable writings and parchments he examined in the
royal archives at Aix.^ Unhappily nothing appears
to be known of these decisive documents, and the
guilt or innocence of Joan of Naples remains one of
the unsolved riddles of history : to those who may
desire to probe the mystery further we may commend
the writings of Mr. St. Clair Baddeley,- the most
doughty and best equipped of her champions.
Mistral ■* and Landor,'* among other dramatists, have

1 Histoire et Chron. de Pro-vetice, p. 388.

- Queen Joanna I of Naples, 1893; Robert the Wise and his
Heirs, 1897.

■* / a Reino Jano.

* Andrea of Hungary, Gio-vanna of Naples, and Fra Rupert, a
Trilogy.

144

Queen Joan of Naples

celebrated in verse and in prose the beauty and
innocence of la douce Rc'inc Jeanne ; her stormy life
and pitiful end.

Clement, when the tragic news reached Avignon,
bitterly reproached himself for delaying his consent to
Andrew's coronation ; he fulminated a bull of excom-
munication against the perpetrators and abettors of the
crime, and preached a powerful sermon on the text,
"Thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the
ground." But it was not till June i 346, nearly nine
months after the murder, that a judicial tribunal,
tardily appointed by Clement, began its sittings at
Naples under Bertrand de Baux : a bloody assize was
held, and amid the most revolting tortures, certain of
the minor suspects were made to confess, and were
executed with peculiar ferocity.

Whoever may have cherished doubts as to the prime
authors of his brother's murder, Louis of Hungary
had none ; he arraigned Joan before Rienzi at
Rome, to whom Joan had already sent her exculpa-
tion with presents for the Tribune's wife ; he
demanded at Avignon the investiture of the crown of
the Sicilies, and, having made peace with the republic
of Venice, descended like an avenger of blood on
Naples with an invincible army, heralded by sable
mourners, carrying a black silk banner whereon was
emblazoned a ghastly representation of Andrew's
death, Joan, who on August 20, 1347, had secretly
married her handsome cousin, Louis of Taranto, bade
the citizens make no opposition to Louis's entry and
fled (January i 348) to Avignon, leaving her two-year-
old child behincl her at Naples : Louis of Taranto,
by another route, followed her.

The implacable Louis of Hungary wreaked swift
and awful vengeance on his suspected cousins.

L 145

Avignoti

Sternly bidding Charles of Durazzo lead the way to
the scene of his brother's murder, and, having arrived
at the fatal passage, he turned to him with flaming
eyes and thundered reproaches upon him : then
making a sign to his attendants, Charles, kneeling
and craving mercy, was done to death and his body
flung out of the balcony from which Andrew was
hanged : the four remaining captive princes were
banished the realm and, with Joan's child, sent to
Hungary. Maria, Charles's widow, escaped with her
children to Provence disguised as a beggar.

After many vicissitudes of fortune we next find
Joan of Naples and Louis of Taranto at Villeneuve,
while Clement is besieged with the insistent accusa-
tions and alleged proofs of Joan's guilt brought by
the King of Hungary's ambassadors. At length
Clement agreed to receive the Neapolitan fugitives
into his presence with such regal welcome as the
unhappy times would permit, for the plague was
still in Avignon. Some cardinals were despatched to
conduct her across the Rhone, and in full Consistory
the incriminated Joan, with dauntless courage and
marvellous eloquence, majestically faced her accusers.
Joan made a favourable impression on the Curia ;
her financial agent and chief adviser, Nicolo
Acciaiuoli, powerfully advanced her cause by more
solid arguments, and Clement, after rating Louis
of Taranto for marrying a suzerain of the papacy
without the necessary dispensation, hailed him Count
of Provence and King of Jerusalem, and presented
him with the Golden Rose at a solemn pontifical
service on Laetare Sunday. And so, with a royal
standard waving over his head, rode handsome Louis
through Avignon, his queen in all the refulgence of
her marvellous beauty by his side. The Hungarians

146

•■V '^%i'

Avignon

were checkmated ; Clement warned King Louis that
judgment on Joan appertained to the Holy See alone ;
he rejected the Hungarian claim to the Sicilies, and
declared that, even if found guilty, the disposition of
Joan's inheritance concerned the Curia.

Meanwhile fortune's wheel was turning, and an
unsuspected ally, silent and unseen, was advancing on
Naples, before whose devouring breath the invincible
hosts of great Louis of Hungary were to be consumed
like stubble ; at the end of April the Black Death
entered Naples, and at the end of May, Louis, to
save the remnant of his decimated army, set sail for
Hungary, leaving garrisons in the chief strongholds of
the conquered realm. Queen Joan's time had now
come ; she pawned her jewels and sold Avignon
to Clement for 80,000 gold florins to equip an
expedition to Naples. The pope, who had made
an excellent bargain, was now unchallenged lord
and master of the city.

The sale of Avignon vvas ratified on June 21,
1348, and the purchase money duly paid over to
Acciaiuoli by the papal procurer. Clement's lawyers,
evidently uneasy at the small consideration paid and
a possible invalidation by reason of Joan's minority,
fenced about the deed of sale with prolix clauses
destined to meet any future challenge by interested
third parties. In this involved and lengthy instru-
ment, which tills ten quarto pages in Nouguier,^ Joan
declares that she agrees to sell as a free agent, and with
the desire and approval of her illustrious husband,
Louis of Taranto, being in no way nor by any
person coerced, seduced, or circumvented, and in
virtue of her titles as Queen of the Sicilies and of
Jerusalem, and Countess of Provence and Forcalquier

^ Hiit. Chron., pp. I 32-1 42.

148

4*

liMit'-,

- 'J

Avignon

and Lady (Domina) of the city of Avignon, the whole
of her city of Avignon, with its suburbs and all its terri-
tories and boundaries and all and singular of its castles,
villas, boroughs, places, together with the whole of
its men, vassals, emphyteuses, hommages, feuds, and
jurisdictions. She is aware that the city is or may
be worth more than the price paid, to wit, eighty
thousand gold florins of Florence, but she knows that
according to the words of Jesus Christ, as reported by
the Holy Apostle, it is better to give than to receive.
So she sells, cedes, and concedes in perpetuity the
said city, etc., etc. And also having touched the Holy
Gospels with her hands she swears never to advance
at any future time against the sale, any infirmity on
her part arising out of her being a minor,^ or from
her age, either secretly or openly, directly, or indirectly.
And Louis of Taranto also swears, etc., etc. — with
much more legal jargon, which we will spare the reader.
This was the Venditio maledicta which so incensed the
people of Avignon and did not a little to engender
that hatred of their new Italian masters, of which
we shall hear anon. The city refused to ratify the
sale, and it was not till nine years later, when
Clement's successor had promulgated a constitution,
that the citizens formally acknowledged the popes to
be their sovereigns. Avignon was also a fief of the
empire, and the emperor had to be approached.
But Charles IV was a more willing tool in Clement's
hands, and on November i, 1348, the imperial seal
was affixed to the sale. Clement promised restitution
if at any time Joan should refund the purchase
money, and some such offer appears subsequently to
have been made, but Mother Church had ever a tight

^ She was twenty-two years old at the date of sale, and
would only come of age at twenty-five.

150

Sale of Avignon

grip on her material possessions, and the fair and
strong city of Avignon remained the patrimony of the
Holy See until the Great French Revolution.

The vicissitudes of the long campaign of mercenary
fighting and bribery waged between Louis of Hungary
and Joan of Naples for the crown of the two Sicilies
do not concern us here. A peace made at Avignon
in January 1352 left Joan in possession of Naples,
Clement promising Louis to bring her to trial for her
alleged participation in Andrew's murder, and if
found guilty she was to be dethroned. Whether the
promised trial ever took place at Avignon is another
of the impenetrable mysteries in which this tragic
history is shrouded. That three papal commissaries,
the Cardinals of Ostia, of Sto. Stefano di Monte
Celio, and of Sta. Lucia in Selce had been appointed
to deal with the charge in I 348 is clear from a letter ^
sent by the Curia to the cardinal legate at Naples,
requesting him to entreat Louis of Hungary to
transmit to Avignon the originals, or copies, of the
depositions made before the tribunal presided over by
Bertrand de Baux. A short anonymous History of
Joan existing in MS. in the municipal library ot
Avignon relates that a commission was appointed
which heard new witnesses, but only obtained vague
evidence, and that Joan declared a spell put upon her
by evilly disposed persons had inspired her with hatred
for her husband, and that some wicked persons might
have assassinated Andrew, thinking to do her a service. -

According to Matteo V'illani commissioners were
appointed, but, unable to reach any honest conclu-
sion, they delayed judgment, the envoys of both

^ The letter is reproduced by Fantoni, Vol. I. p. 215.
2 Ahit'gc <ie I'Histoire dc Jeanne /., Reine de Naples, MS. No.
2032.

Avignon

parties meanwhile fuming at Avignon. At length,
seeing they could not wholly exculpate her with
justice to the evidence, they decided for Joan's sake
to make an end of a dubious situation, and declared
that although some suspicion of lack of perfection in
Joan's affection for her husband might be professed or
proved, such defect was not due to corrupt or evil
will on her part, but to the power of evil spells or
witchcraft, which her frail feminine nature had been
unable to resist. And since the practice of such black
arts had been clearly proved by many witnesses, they
adjudged her innocent of the crime imputed to her
and absolved her of all accusations made, or that might
henceforth be made, against her. " And the said
judgment published her innocence wherever faith in
the said exculpation reached." ^ No documentary
evidence, however, of the institution or proceedings
of such tribunal has hitherto been discovered ; no
reference to any inquiry or to its findings exists in
Clement's letters to Joan and her consort, Louis of
Taranto.-

The city of Avignon never again beheld the majestic
figure and opulent beauty of Queen Joan of Naples,
but her tragic story seized on the imagination of its
people and of Provence generally. Every castle is
associated with her mythical and wondrous character,
and our fathers, says Mistral, used to say : Aimcz,
Dieu et la Reine Jeanne.

Joan lived to be brutalized and accused of infidelity
by handsome Louis of Taranto ; to marry a third
husband in 1364, the King of Majorca, who deserted

1 Book. II. chap. 24. E \la detta sentenzia fece di-vo!gare per
la sua innocenza oz'unjw: la fede giunse della detta scusa.

2 SeeRohert the M-'ise, by St. Clair Baddeley, p. 482. Accord-
ing to Fantoni, I. 229, she was declared innocent in I 351.

1^'2

Sale of Avignon

her, and a fourth in 1376, the stalwart conduttiere
Otto of Brunswick. In 1 38 1 Louis of Hungary
glutted his long delayed vengeance. Childless,
betrayed by her adopted son and heir, Charles II of
Durazzo, and immured in a castle at Muro in the
Basilicata, she was kneeling one day in her private
chapel at prayer, when four Hungarian soldiers
stealthily entered, flung a cord round her neck, and
throttled her. Four months later Louis of Hungary
went to his account, and Charles II of Durazzo, having
been enticed to Hungary to assume the vacant crown,
was set upon by Hungarian assassins, cut down, and
butchered.

153

CHAPTER XI

THE DREAD COMPANIONS URBAN V BERTRAND DU

GUESCLIN URBAN V AT ROME HIS RETURN TO

AVIGNON GREGORY XI ST. CATHERINE AT AVIGNON

RETURN OF THE PAPACY TO ROME.

Few events in the history of princely ambition
have brought in their train a more appalling sequence
of misery than the technical claim of Edward III to
the crown of France. The desolation wrought in
Normandy by the English armies, that in 1346
" sayled forth in the name of God," ^ under the
command of the king and of the Black Prince, can
be paralleled in modern times only by the ravages of
an army of Bashi-Bazouks. That fair province, " one
of the plentyous countryes of the world," was chosen
because its people were not used to war ; it was
given up to fire and sword, rapine and lust ; smoking
towns and ruined villages marked the track of the
English armies, and a peaceful land, smiling with
corn and covered with merchants' houses full of all
riches and " cartes and charyottes, horse, swyne,
muttons and other beastes," was left a scarred wilder-
ness. " They took what them lyst, and so was brent,
exyled, robbed, wasted and pylled the good plentyful
country of Normandy."

While the papal army under Cardinal Albornoz

1 Froisstut's Chronicles. Lord Berner's Translation. Tudor
Translations.

T^he Dread Companions

was ravaging Italy, the English Terror menaced
Avignon ; for in 1355, the Black Prince, unable to
pay his troops, was raiding the fruitful and peaceful
valleys of the Garonne. Small wonder that Pope
Innocent was " sore abasshed," for the prince, having
despoiled Langucdoc, was threatening Villeneuve, and
since the fatal day of Crecy none durst stand against
those terrible English bowmen that " always shotte
so wholly togeder." This time, however. Innocent
was quit for his terror, and the prince after burning
Carcassonne returned to Bordeaux with a thousand
wagon loads of loot. Indeed, so rich was the spoil
won by the EnglisJi knights in France — even common
soldiers often filled their wallets with gold and silver
— that the cupidity of every titled ruffian in Europe
was excited, and hundreds of noble freebooters flocked
to the standards of the English king and prince.
And when the capture of good King John and the
peace of Brctigny had dried up these fertile springs
of wealth, " such as those that lacked wages and wyst
nat where to wynne anything,'' resolved to stay in
France, and organize themselves under experienced
captains into Great Companies, with the object of
practising the same lucrative operations for their own
private emolument which they had been taught to
practise in the service of princes. Chiefly composed
of English, Gascon and Breton mercenaries, and often
led by the scions of noble houses, they had their own
treasury and their own summary justice ; brokers,
merchants, and even the agents of important financial
houses, frequented their camp. They aimed especially
at rich abbeys and nunneries. Terror was their
dread pursuivant ; famine and plague dogged their
steps. The very bonds of natural affection were
broken ; parents abandoned their children, children

Avignon

their parents. Soon, says Father Denifle, we shall
see monks at their head, perpetrating crimes more
horrible than those committed by laymen.^ In 1364
the Bishop of Carcassonne wrote to Avignon that he
had seven scoundrels of the Great Companies in safe
hold at the disposition of the Inquisitors, whose names
prove them to be all of noble houses. Petrarch, who
had small love for France, could not restrain his tears
as he rode through the land on his way to Paris —
the land he once knew so rich and flourishing. On
every hand he beheld tokens of man's savagery —
fearful solitudes, general desolation, fields untilled
and devastated ; the very Seine that bathed the walls
of Paris seemed to weep for the misery of France.
The heartrending petitions to the Curia from the
ruined monasteries and churches and hospitals of that
unhappy land for material help, published by Father
Denifle,^ and the iterated, destructa est, deserta est,
written opposite the names of the churches and
monasteries of France in the papal collectors' lists
given by Samaran and Mollat,^ are more eloquent
than volumes. For the companies did but emulate
the practice of mediaeval princes, who in their wars
aimed at avoiding pitched battles and sought to wreak
as much damage as possible on the enemy's territories ;
who made a wilderness and called it victory.

In 1357 the brigand arch-priest, Arnaud de
Cervolles, of the noble house of Talleyrand, was raid-
ing the Venaissin, where he established himself in two
castles. " Pope and cardynals," says Froissart, " had
of that company great dout, and kept men day and
nyght in harnesse, and when this arch-priest and his

^ Desolation des Eglises, Vol. II. p. 283.

2 Ibid., Vol. I.

•* La Fiscalite pont. en France, p. i6i.
156

T'he Thread Companions

company had robbed all the countre the pope and
clergy fell in treaty with them, and so on a sure
appoyntmcnt they came to Avygnone, and there were
as honourably receyved as thoughe there had been a
kinges sonne, and oft tymes this knyght dyncd with
the pope and with the cardynals, and they had
pardon of all their synnes, and at their dyparting
they had in rewarde xl thousands crownes." The
story has been embellished by the imagination of the
worthy chronicler, for recent researches have cast
doubt both on those strange dinner parties and on
the enormity of the ransom ; all that appears to
have been paid out by the papal chamberlain to
the arch-priest was a sum of looo florins of gold.^
It is obvious that a policy of paying blackmail
would only serve to embolden these organized
brigands, and so, indeed, it fell out. The rich
papal city proved an irresistible lure ; Robert
Knollys, captain of one of the most dreaded of the
companies, after " brennying anci exyling " the country
of Berry, " purposed to go and see the pope and
cardynalls at Avygnone and to have som of ther
floryns, as the arch-priest had done." Clement \T
had already made a beginning of new fortifications
of the city, and Innocent now resolved to complete
them. In 1358 he levied a poll-tax of half a franc
on every inhabitant of the city, and a gabelle of one
florin on every butt of wine ; and in order that the
vintners should suffer no loss in consequence, the pope
authorized them to reduce the measure of wine to
consumers. The Captain-General of Avignon, Count
Ferdinand of Heredia, was ordered to build anew the
fortifications of the city, and in a little over a year
the city was partially enclosed with walls and towers
' Denifle, Vol. II. pp. 209, 210.

Avignon

and fosses ; further taxes were subsequently imposed,
on lay and cleric alike, to complete them. And
none too soo.i, for in 1360 report came that three
companies were marching southward, one 3000 strong,
" and sayde how they wolde se the pope and
card)-nalls and have som of their money." In
December, Pont St. Esprit, which commanded the

^

-(1- 'i-«!»''-'iliM^^LL^vr

A PORTION OF THE TOWN WALLS, AVIGNON"

lower Rhone, was carried by storm and an enormous
treasure won ; hordes of other brigands swooped down
like vultures, wasting all the country, robbed "with-
out sparying and vyolated and defoyled women, old
and yong, without pytie, and slew men and women
and chyldren without mercy, and such as dyde most
shamefullyest dedes were reputed with them most
valyant." The Companions then left the garrison at

158

Urban V

Pont St. Ksprit under a captain, known as tlie friend
of God and enemy of all the world, and pillaged up
to the new walls of Avignon.

Whereupon Pope Innocent preached "a cro}sey
promising to assoyl a pcna rt culpa all that woldc
abandon their bodies willingl}' to distro}' these yvell
people.'' The King of France, the Duke of Burgundy,
even the lords of Bale and Geneva were summoned
to lend their aid ; but the papal legate, with small
knowledge of human nature — especially military
nature — relied only on such as " wolde save their
soulcs in attajning to these sayd pardons and have
none other wages," anci soon discovered, like Pope
Urban later, that " men of warre lyve nat by pardons,
and that gold and sylver is the metal whereby love
is attayned of gentlemen and of pore souldyours " :
the legate's army melted away, some even deserting
to the companies. And so the "yvell companies"
liarried the land fir into the summer of 1361, when
they were headed off by a bribe of 14,500^ florins,
all assoiled a pcna et culpa to fight the battles of Holy
Church in Lombardy — among them the dreaded
White Company of English and Gascons under John
Hawkwood. Two jears later the arch-priest de-
feated, above Lyons, an arm\-, chiefl}' of French
knights, 7000 strong, under the Duke of Bourbon,
killing the duke and his son and taking many noble
prisoners.

Meanwhile Innocent had died, and on October
28, 1362, William of Grimoard, abbot of St. V^ictor
at Marseilles, was chosen to wear the uneasy tiara at
Avignon. To the amazement of the cardinals the
new pontif}'. Urban \', on his arrival at the gates of
the city, refused to ride in the solemn pageant they

^ Froissart, with his usual exaggeration, says 60,000 florins.

159

Avtgjjon

had prepared for his reception, and journeyed on foot
to the papal palace. Those were stirring times at
Avignon. Good King John of France was in the
city, to whom came the brave crusader. King Peter
of Cyprus ; both were right joyously received by
the pope, "and when they hadde been together a
certayne tyme and taken wyne and spices the two
kynges departed from the pope and went together
to their lodgying ; then two noble and expert
knyghtes, syr Aymon of Pommierz and syr Fouques
of Archiac fought a wager of battel " before King
John. No less than three kings honoured by their
presence the first pontifical mass recited by Pope
Urban, the King of Denmark having also entered
Avignon ; and after the mass they fell talking of the
ever-promised but never-fulfilled crusade against the
Saracens of Palestine which was to bring the collateral
advantage to King John of ridding France of the
" men of warre called companyons that pylled and
robbed his countre." The three monarchs kept
their Lent at Avignon, and on Good Friday, Urban
preached in the papal chapel, before the kings and
the "hole college of cardynalls. And after that holy
predlcacion, the whichewas ryght humble and moche
devoute, the French kynge by great devocion toke
on him the croysey and swetely requyrcd of the pope
to accord and to confyrme his voyage, and the pope
lyghtly agreed thereto." But the companies, who
boasted that France was their chamber, had a rooted
objection to cross the wallowing seas and measure
swords with the infidels, and neither they nor good
King John ever saw the land of Palestine.

There was a dark background to all this regal and
pontifical magnificence. Those were annees terr'ibles
for the poor folk of Avignon. Plague, famine, flood

1 60

Urban V

and brigandage were making havoc of the pontifical
domain. During the closing years ol Innocent's
reign, bands of nocturnal thieves armed to the teeth,
among whom were many of noble lineage, plundered
the citizens of Avignon, violated their wives and
daughters, and vigorous extra-legal measures were
found necessary to rid the city of their presence ;
some were hanged in the market-place, and many
secretly flung into the Rhone. In the spring of
I 361 the Black Death reappeared in the city and its
suburbs, and within four months nine cardinals, 100
prelates, and 17,000 of the inhabitants were mowed
down by that awful scourge ; an arctic winter ensued
in 1363, the vines were blasted, and olive and fruit
trees cut down by its icy breath ; the Rhone, frozen
to a depth of fifteen feet, suffered carts and horses
to cross its ice-bound flood ; a plague of locusts in
the summer devoured the crops. These natural
calamities, following on the savage desolation wrought
by the brigands, dazed the good pontiff by their
terrible sequence. In 1 363 the Companions were
ravaging Languedoc, and Urban, on February 27,
1364, fulminated a bull of excommunication against
them : in rapid iteration others followed — a second on
May 27, and a third on April 5, 1365. The pontiff
called on God and the archangel Michael to destroy
them : he besought the Lord to smite them with
blindness as he had smitten the Assyrians. He
forbade princes to employ them, or any man to
serve under their banners or to supply them with
the necessaries of life ; he called on all the faithful
to resist these enemies of Christ and of the human
race, promising plenary indulgence to all who joined
a crusade against them, and Paradise to those who
died fighting in the Holy War. The Rector of the

M 161

Avignon

Venaissin vigorously reinforced the spiritual thunders
by the secular arm, and in November 1363 had
succeeded in forming a league of the neighbouring
States against the common enemy ; lay and cleric
were forced to contribute to find the gold and silver
so necessary to win the love of poor soldiers. The
brigands bent to the storm, and for a while left the
neighbourhood of Avignon. In 1365 the Companions
inflicted a disastrous defeat on the royal army in the
plains of Ville Dieu near Montauban, and the in-
efficacy of the spiritual artillery of Avignon appears
to have caused some perplexity in the minds of the
faithful, for pious Abbot Aimeric, author of the
Fifth Life of Urban, tells that when returning home
from his studies, he passed, three days after, close to
the battlefield of Ville Dieu and heard a miracu-
lous thing attested by many witnesses : the slain
among the excommunicated Companions were found
lying on their backs with their faces twisted round
to the earth in token of the papal malediction,
while the crusaders lay with their faces raised to
heaven.^

In May of the same year Charles IV rode into
Avignon with all the pomp and circumstance of his
holy and imperial office, followed by a magnificent
train of German princes and magnates. The emperor
was received by pope and cardinals, z'nlde notabiliter
et honorqfice, and attended a solemn pontifical mass
on Whit Sunday, draped in the imperial mantle,
crowned with the imperial diadem, and holding in
his right hand the sceptre of empire. Many inter-
views the supreme spiritual and secular powers had
together in the great papal palace, and among the
urgent matters considered, was how to rid the unhappy
1 Baluze, Vol. I. pp. 421,422.
162

Bertr'and dii Guesclin

land of the Companions. It was agreed that they
should be offered a free passage through the imperial
territories to join the King of Hungary in a crusade
against the Turks ; but the brigands, who had no
intention of risking their skins in perilous and un-
remunerative pagan warfare, used their freedom of
passage to devastate Alsace, and then returned to
France, their chamber. Happily the revolt of his
subjects against the tyranny of Pedro the Cruel —
Froissart's Dampeter — affbrcied an opportunity of
heading the brigands oft' into Castile, and the heroic
Bertrand du Guesclin accepted the onerous duty of
marching them into Spain to fight for the Pretender,
Henry of Trastamare. Urban, having excommuni-
cated Pedro in full consistory, summoned Henry, an
extra-legal scion of the royal house, to Avignon,
where he solemnly legitimatized him and blessed his
arms. Bertrand du Guesclin called the chief of the
Companions together, addressed them with rugged
eloquence, imploring them to make an end of the
suffering they were inflicting on France, and, by
joining a crusade against the excommunicated Pedro
and the infidel Sultan of Granada, gain pardon for
their sins rather than damnation for their souls ; the
more effective lure of rich booty from Castile was
skilfully dangled before them. The Companions
agreed to follow Bertrand, on the promise of a large
subsidy from the King of France and from the pope ;
they marched their armies forth to Spain by way of
Avignon, and early in November the rascals lay near
V'illeneuve. Urban, alarmed, hastily despatched one
of his cardinals to entreat them to follow another
route. His eminence, as he went his way to their
camp, met an English trooper whom he desired to
guide him to their captain. " Have you brought

M 2 163

Avtgnon

any money ? " bluntly demanded the soldier, as they
went to the tent where Guesclin and the other chiefs
of the Companions were assembled. The cardinal
entered and asked the reason of their presence. " We
are leading these fine fellows against the Saracens of
Granada," said an officer, " and are come to entreat
the Holy Father to assoil us of our sins and deliver
to us 200,000 florins of gold for the expenses of our
journey." The papal envoy made no difficulty about
the absolution but much about the money. " Listen,
sire," broke in Bertrand, " his Holiness must pay up.
These brave fellows can easily do without absolution
but not without money," and on the cardinal
promising to convey this message to the pope, the
rough soldier added : " Yes, and let it be quickly
done. To-day we lodge at Villeneuve. I cannot
answer for to-morrow, and delay will mean pillage,"
Urban and his cardinals were in hard case, and while
they took counsel together behind the strong walls
of Avignon, their deliberations were hastened by a
body of Companions, who crossed the Rhone and
pillaged up to the very gates of the city. The papal
chamberlain having gathered together 100,000 francs,
the sum was paid over to Guesclin, who — so runs the
story — on learning that the money had been raised by
a capitation tax on the inhabitants, angrily refused to
accept any part of the subsidy on those terms, and
sternly bade the pope refund the money drawn from
the poor folk of Avignon and pay it out of the papal
treasury. Satisfaction was finally made to Bertrand's
demands ; absolution, signed and sealed with the
papal seal, was handed to him, and to their unspeak-
able relief, Urban and his cardinals beheld from the
windows of the great palace the formidable hosts of
the brigands wend their way along the road from

164

Bertraiid du Guesclin

Villeneuvc to Toulouse. ^ Hut the riches ever flowing
into Avignon remained too seductive. In the offices
of the papal chamberlains, in the palace, sat clerks
before tables loaded with gold, counting and weigh-
ing the specie of Christendom ; along the roads
that led thither travelled rich prelates, fat abbots,

A TOWN GATE, AVIGN'ON

and other suitors for favours only to be won by
bringing goki pieces. Argent fait avoir benejices^^
says Froissart, and small wonder the cupidity of
the Companions was perpetually excited by an

' According to Denifle only part of the subsidy was paid over,
the tithes nf the diocese of Tours having been hypothecated for
the balance. A further instalment of 32,000 florins was paid
on January 26, 1566, and in 1368, 37,000 florins were still due.

- Le Dit dou Florin.

165

Avignon

easy prey. In the papal registers are ever- recurrent
complaints and demands for compensation from
clerics who had been despoiled on their way to
Avignon. And so bands of the rascals were still
active enough round Avignon and parts of France
to endure another bull of excommunication in May
1366; a Parthian bolt was launched against them
as Urban left Marseilles for Rome a year later ; and
a third curse was fulminated at them from Rome in
January 1 369. But the hands of the Church militant
were not clean in this matter, for the most ferocious
of the companies were employed in her Italian wars ;
in 1365 the papal legate, Cardinal Albornoz, and
Queen Joan of Naples were in treaty with them,
styling the scoundrels caros am'tcos et fratres benevo/es,
whom they paid 160,000 florins to serve the legate
and Joan for six months, and then to spare the realm
of Naples and the States of the Church for a period
of five years afterwards. ^

Urban at his accession had made the usual qualified
promise to the usual deputation from Rome. At
length, wearied at the ever-recurring spoliation and
blackmail by the Companions, the return of the
Curia to the banks of the Tiber seemed to offer fewer
terrors than to remain behind the walls of Avignon.
Better news, too, opportunely came from across the
Alps. In 1360 the Romans had re-established a
popular government under the protection of a sort of
city trainbands or republican guards of crossbow-
men and shield-bearers, headed by thechief of the city
wards and under the supreme command of two B(tn-
dares'i. Cardinal Albornoz, by a series of brilliant
victories and by masterly statesmanship, had recovered
the greater part of the ecclesiastical States in Italy,
and won for himself the title of Tyrant-crusher,

166

Urban V at Rome

watching his prey, says Matteo Villani, like a hawk
and never letting it slip ; peace had been made
between France and England ; Empire and Church
were reconciled. Urban, one of the most devout and
righteous popes that ever sat in Peter's chair, resolved
to remove to widowed Rome, and despite pressure
from the King of France and the majority of the
cardinals, left the papal palace of Avignon on April
30, 1367, for Rome. At Marseilles a magnificent
fleet of sixty galleys, furnished by Venice and Pisa,
and by Joan of Naples, awaited him ; his cardinals
refused to follow him farther, but Urban immediately
created two, and told the recusants he had cardinals
enough in his hood to do without them.^ Their
recalcitrancy was changed into fear, and they em-
barked with him ; five only returned to Avignon,
whose walls for three years never sheltered pope again.
On landing at Corneto in June, Urban was met
by a multitude of nobles and prelates, and the great
warrior-cardinal, who laid at his feet the keys of a
hundred captured cities. But his further progress
was marred by a significant incident : the citizens of
Viterbo, irritated by the haughty demeanour of the
hated French, rose against the cardinals, crying " Long
live the People and death to the Church ! " - The
terrified cardinals, one of them severely wounded,
fled to the papal palace, where they lay besieged for
three days. The riot was soon quelled by the papal
troops, and ten of the ringleaders were hanged ; but
it was an ominous beginning, and although a delirious
welcome was accorded to Urban as, accompanied by
armed mercenaries, he entered Rome, the scenes of
desolation that on every hand met the eyes of pope

1 Baluze, Vol. I. p. 41 5.

" Vfvat fopulus : ecc/esia moriatur. Baluze, Vol. I. p. 420.

167

Avignon

and cardinals were never effaced from their memories :
St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, the Vatican, half in
ruins ; gaping, dilapidated convents and monasteries ;
swamps and rubbish heaps, where once had been busy-
streets and noisy market-places. Charles IV, the pitiful
successor of Charlemagne, having bribed his way to
Rome, served the first pontifical mass as a deacon ; but
amid the welter of Roman factions and the entangle-
ments of Italian politics which bewildered them, the
Gallic Curia yearned for their own kindred ; for the
luxurious palaces in their fair Provenfal lands, and the
sheltering walls of the strong city on the Rhone. Before
Urban left Avignon he had taken measures to extend
and strengthen the fortifications, and empowered the
governor to demolish any house, even cardinals'
palaces, that stood in the way, on due compensation
being paid. In 1369 the yet unsubdued Perugians
were ravaging the States of the Church, even up to
the walls of Viterbo, where the papal court then sat,
and a French pope was constrained to fulminate curses
against an Italian state and to move an army against
a rebellious Italian vassal. During the ensuing summer,
when the Curia had migrated to Montefiascone,
news came of renewed hostilities between France and
England, and pressure from the French court, added
to the incessant appeals of his cardinals, determined
Urban to exchange the Tiber for the Rhone ; he
embarked, and with St. Bridget's prophecy of impend-
ing doom ringing in his ears, the gates of the great
palace on September 24, i 370, opened wide to receive
the errant pope and his cardinals again.

Scarce had Urban settled down in his old home

when messengers arrived in hot haste bearing the

appalling news of the sack of Limoges by Edward the

Black Prince, the massacre of its population, and the

168

His Return to Avignon

condemnation of its bishop to the block. French
and English authorities, says Dcnifle,' are in accord
as to what had happened. Let Froissart repeat the
story that pale messengers poured into the ears of
Pope Urban at Avignon, of the fate of the fair city
of Limoges which, having reverted to France, had
been recovered by the English on the anniversary of
Poictiers. " Then the Prince, the Duke of Lan-
castre, the crle of Cambridge, the erle of Pembroke,
syr Gaysharde Dangle and all the others with their
Companyes entered into the cyte, and all the fote men
redy aparellcd to do yvell and to pyll and robbe the
cytie and to sle men women and chyldren, for so it was
commanded them to do. It was great pitie to se
the men women and chyldren that kneled doune on
their knees before the Prince for mercy ; but he was
so en flamed with yre that he toke no hede to them
so that none was herde, but all putte to dethe as they
were mette wythal. . . . There was no pytie taken of
the poore people. . . . There was not so harde a
hcrt within the cytie of Lymoges & yf he had any
remembraunce of God but that wept pyteously for the
great mischefis that they sawe before their eyen. for
moc than thrc thousand men women and chyldren
were slayne and beheaded that day : God have mercy
on their soules for I trowe they were martyrs. . . .
Thus the city of Lymoges was pylled robbed and
clene brent and brought to destructyon." The mes-
sengers prayed Urban to intercede with the Duke of
Lancaster for the condemned bishop ; this the pope
with " swcte words " did, and the prelate's life was
saved.

St. Bridget proved herself no false prophetess.
Urban, three months after he entered the papal palace

' Diiolation des Eg/ises, Vol. II. pp. 559, 560.

169

Avignon

at Avignon, was carried out again, smitten with mortal
sickness, and, dressed in his Benedictine habit, laid on
his death-couch in his brother's house, where all
poor folk had access to him night and day, that they
might behold the vanity of earthly pomp and the
flight of a naked soul : on December 19, 1370, the
good pope Urban passed from mortal strife. His
body, laid temporarily in the chapel of John XXII at
Notre Dame des Doms, in the following spring found
final rest in the Abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles.
Miracles magna et stiipenda were wrought at his tomb
both at Avignon and Marseilles ; scarce a church in
Christendom but had a memorial of him, honoured
by vigils and oblations, and an infinite number of
ex votos in the church of St. Victor long testified to
the miraculous cures wrought by his intercession : at
Bologna he was venerated as a saint. Urban never
having been a cardinal, entered on his high office with
untainted mind ; he proved a rigid disciplinarian,
and strove to cleanse the Church of lax, extravagant
and immoral priests ; he did what he could to arrest
the traffic in benefices, and so effectual were his
measures against usury that 200,000 florins are said
to have been paid in to the Curia as fines on that
account alone. He loved learning, founded colleges
and bursaries for poor students ; he cared for the
amenity of the services of the papal chapel, and sent
a music master and seven boys to study music and
singing at Toulouse. Owing to his excellent adminis-
trative powers and jealous care of the Church's
funds, he was able to devote large sums of money
to further the building traditions of the Avignon
popes ; he adorned the great palace with gardens
and pleasaunces more lovely than any ever seen in
Avignon ; he repaired and fortified many of the

170

Gregory XI

churches and monasteries which had been ruined by
the brigands ; he expended large sums at Rome to
restore St. Peter's, the Lateran, and St. Paul's, and
many were his gifts of sacred vessels to the despoiled
sanctuaries of France and Provence. No blot of
nepotism sullies his memory ; he left his kinsmen
poor, and it is related that when at Rome an abbot
of St. Paul's brought him a large sum of money,
hoping thereby to gain promotion, Urban devolved
the bribe to the restoration of the monastery, and
bade the suppliant remain abbot still.

One of the most popular of the cardinals with his
colleagues was Pierre Roger, of the noble house of
Beaufort, on whose youthful brow, his uncle, Clement
VI, had placed the cardinal's hat at seventeen years ot
age : on December 30, 1370, Pierre was unanimously
elected to fill the vacant chair, and on January 4,
I 371, enthroned as Gregory XI with great pageantry ;
the Duke of Anjou, brother to the French king,
holding the bridle of his palfrey as the brilliant caval-
cade wound its way through the streets of Avignon.
Gregory, a cultured aristocrat, gentle when obeyed,
but hard and passionate when opposed, sickly in body
and of pale complexion, was poorly endowed with
the qualities of mind and body necessary to guide
the destinies of the Church in the stormy days of the
Italian wars : he could not speak Italian, and at the
outset of his career irritated Italian susceptibilities by
the creation of a batch of twelve cardinals chiefly
French. Fortune favoured the opening of his reign.
The all-conquering Spanish cardinal added the keys
of the strong city of Perugia to his former spoils, and
his great mission in Italy was achieved when on
May 19, I 37 I, the papal legate entered her gates in
triumph.

171

Avignon

But Avignon did not enjoy her victory long.
The Visconti of Milan, indomitable protagonists of
the Ghibelline cause, invaded ecclesiastical territory ;
a fresh creation of nine cardinals in December 1375
increased by seven the Gallic members of the Curia ;
the French and Provenfal vicars from Avignon, by
their ignorance of the Italian tongue, their exactions,
their pride and arbitrary government, fanned the hot
embers of Italian hatred of Prankish domination.

In 1375, Florence, allied with the Visconti,
assumed the lead of the revolted States, and under a
crimson banner bearing the device, Libertas, priest
and layman rose, and ignominiously expelled, or slew,
their foreign governors. Bologna was the first to
rise ; with cries of " Death to the Church ! " her
citizens chased away the dcmon'i incarnat'i, as the alien
vicars were styled by St. Catherine of Siena ; Perugia
followed. Gregory fulminated against Florence a
bull so savage that when recited in Consistory at the
papal palace at Avignon the Florentine ambassador
turned to the great crucifix facing the papal throne,
fell on his knees, and appealed against the sentence
to the great Judge of popes and peoples on the Cross
before him. The fiery curse was launched : " None,
under pain of excommunication, shall dare to have
any dealings with the government or citizens of Flor-
ence ; none shall speak, or eat, or drink, or buy, or
sell, or give favour, or aid, or counsel to any of her
people, whose persons, goods and property are out-
lawed ; no Florentine cloth or any other mer-
chandise shall be bought or sold or received as a
gift." All Christendom was hounded on to plunder
and enslave the Florentines, and they were to be
expelled from Avignon and the Venaissin. Soon
thousands of fugitives flocked into Genoa and other

172

St. Catherine at Avignon

cities, whose inhabitants were excommunicated for
their hospitality.

But the Florentines hardened their hearts and
steeled their nerves to meet the avenging arms of the
Church militant, and again Italy was surrendered to
fire and carnage. The cardinal legate, Robert of
Geneva, with 10,000 ferocious Breton and Gascon
mercenaries, crossed the Alps to attack the allies, but
with only partial success, due, say the papal annalists,
to the malice and astuteness of the Florentines.
Disquieting news, too, came from the Tiber : Floren-
tine emissaries were making strenuous endeavours to
win over the Roman democracy. The Italian cardinals
made heartrending appeals to Gregory, imploring him
to return to Italy and save the Church from utter
ruin. St. Catherine of Siena, now a potent spiritual
force in Christendom, wrote letter after letter, half
minatory, half beseechingly, to her sweet /'^Z'^o, bidding
him come to Rome and win back his strayed lambs
by clemency and not by violence, while Gregory,
feeble, irresolute, drawn hither and thither between
conflicting interests and divided counsels, fretted
away his ineffectual soul within the walls of Avignon.

On June 18, 1376, St. Catherine, having offered her
services as mediator between the republic of Florence
and the papacy, entered Avignon, and was honourably
received by Gregory, who assigned as her dwelling the
palace of La Motte. Within two days of her arrival,
Catherine was ushered into the pope's presence, and
happily we are able to be present at this momentous
interview between the poor dyer's daughter of Siena and
the great vicar of Christ on earth ; for, since Catherine
could not speak Latin, nor Gregory, Italian, the gentle
and learned Friar Raimondo dellc \'ignc, her con-
fessor, whom her sweet mother Mary had given her,

173

Avignon

as father and son was present as interpreter, and from
his pen we have the story. The saint, although
reverent in bearing, did not spare her words : the
Roman Curia, which ought to be a paradise of
heavenly virtues, she had found to be a hell of filthy
vices. Gregory for answer turned to Raymond, and
asked him how long Catherine had been in Avignon.
Receiving the answer he had expected, Gregory de-
manded how in so few days had she been able to
investigate the morals of the papal court. In a moment
the saint changed her attitude of meekness and sub-
mission, drew herself up to her full height, " even as
I saw with my bodily eyes," and with somewhat of
majesty in her bearing burst forth into these words :
" To the honour of God Almighty, I make bold to
say that while abiding in my own city where I was
born I have perceived more filthiness of sin com-
mitted in the Roman Curia than they themselves
have perceived who have committed, and do daily
commit, such sins in this court." " The pope," con-
tinues Raymond, dumbfounded, held his peace,
" and I, amazed, noted in my heart with what com-
manding authority she uttered these words in the
presence of so great a pontiff." ^

Catherine's task as a mediator between Florence
and Avignon sped but ill, and she turned to a divinely
imposed mission of far greater magnitude — the reform
of the Church of Christ and the return of His vicar
to the seat of St. Peter. Notwithstanding her denun-
ciations Gregory's weak nature found grateful support
in her imperturbable faith and indomitable courage.
It is related that in the early days of his pontificate,
Gregory having reproved a certain bishop for ab-

* Acta Sanctorum. Aprilis : Vita S. Cath. 5cn., Tom. III. pt. ii.

§ ";2-

ST. C.Vi'lliiRiXE OF SIENA. Andrea tlc I'aiiii/. Chtirch
of San Donienico, Siena.

[lo/iucp. 174.

St. Catherine at Avlgno?i

sentecism, tlic prelate tartly rejoined : " Hul}- Father,
why should you chide me, you who dwell far from
your spouse, and by despising her are far more guilty
than I." Conscience-stricken, and pondering these
words, the pope retired to his secret chamber and
made a solemn vow to God that he would return to
Rome without delay. On a day, Catherine, sum-
moned into the presence of the pontiff, found him
wavering in his purpose by reason of pressure from
the French court and fears of Italian poisoners.
Gregory recited his perplexities and prayed her to
counsel him. " Why do you, a pope," answered
Catherine, " ask counsel of me who am but a
wretched little woman ? You know what you have
promised to God : keep your vow." Gregory,
amazed at her response — for his vow was known
to himself and to his God alone — put aside all
hesitation and finall}- determined to set forth for
Rome.i

The spell that Catherine cast over all with whom
she came in contact proved irresistible. She baffled
all the efforts of the Gallic cardinals, furious that a
mere woman should hold the keys of Gregory's heart,
to ensnare her by their dialectical subtleties, or to
discredit her in the pope's eyes. She maintained her
ascendancy over Gregory's mind, and, for a while,
even won over Louis of Anjou, the very envoy of the
King of France whose mission it was to thwart her
purpose. The Countess of V'alentinois, the pope's
sister, says Stephen, after having once spoken with
Catherine, was filled with great devotion and affection
for her, and once expressed to Master Raymond her
desire to be present when the holy virgin received

' The story is told by Stephen, one of Raymond's companions,
loc. cit.y Epiit. Dom. Stephani, § 9.

Avignon

Communion. On the following Sunday morning
Catherine entered the beautiful chapel at her palatial
lodging, unshod and wearing only thin slippers, and,
more sua, was at once rapt in ecstacy. Master Ray-
mond quickly called Stephen, and bade him go to the
palace where the venerable sister of the pope dwelt
and inform her that the holy virgin was about to
receive the Blessed Sacrament. Stephen found the
great lady at mass, and as he entered she recognized
him as one of Catherine's household. Straightway
the countess came towards him and said : " My son,
what seekest thou ? " Hearing the response, the
gratified lady hastened to the chapel with an honour-
able company of both sexes, among whom was the
wife of the pope's nephew, Raymond of Turenne, a
young woman full of vanity and having naught of
godliness. She, wretched woman, thinking the holy
virgin did but feign, bent down over her feet, after
mass was ended, and, pretending to kiss them, stabbed
them repeatedly with a sharp needle. The ecstatic
virgin remained motionlesss, even as she would have
done had her feet been cut oft" ; but when the saint
returned to herself she felt such pain that she could
scarcely walk, and her companions, as they saw the
blood trickle from the wounds, led her away
sorrowing.^

For three months Catherine wrestled with the
demom incarnati at Avignon for the possession of
Gregory's irresolute mind. When interviews were
denied her she despatched letter after letter by the
hand of her faithful Raymond to babbo m'lo dolce,
urging him with passionate eloquence to think of
God's honour and the salvation of souls and not be
swayed by selfish, ambitious and lustful men. She
^ Loc. cit., §11.
176

Return of the Papacy to Rome

even besought him to practise a pious fraud : ^ let
him lull opposition by a pretence of delay and then
swiftly and suddenly depart. Gregory, to his honour,
appears to have suffered the saint's importunities and
vituperation without loss of temper and gave her
many tokens of his goodwill. He was, says Raymond,
cxhUcratHs et paritcr delectatus at the saint's miraculous
power of compelling sinners to confess, and authorized,
by apostolic letters, Raymond and two companions
fully to absolve any penitents she sent to them. Poor
Raymond was a weak vessel and found the burden of
sanctity at times hard to bear. He complains that
he and his companions were often kept listing up to
vespers, hearing these confessions ; and even then they
were unable to cope with the press of penitents. " I
myself," adds Raymond, " was many times utterly
exhausted by these excessive labours.'-

Catherine remained at her post in Avignon to the
last, and only on the very day she saw Gregory
depart did she, too, wend her way overland to meet
him again at Genoa.

The poor little daughter of a Sienese dyer had
effected what neither appeals of princes nor entreaties
of Roman prelates had been able to achieve, and
on September 13, 1 376, Gregory, wresting himself
away from the entreaties of prince and cardinals,
began his momentous journey. A piteous scene was
enacted as he was about to cross the threshold of the
palace. Gregory's aged father, the Count of Beaufort,
fell at his feet, and, beating his breast, wailed aloud :
" My son ! my son ! whither goest thou ? I shall
never behold thee more ! " Gently stepping over

^ Viate un santo iiiganno. Tommaseo : Letteie, Vol. III.
ccxxxi. p. 283.
* Loc, cit., § 240.

N 177

Avignon

his prostrate sire, Gregory mounted a restive horse
with difficulty ; at the outskirts of the city the animal
refused to carry him farther and another mount had
to be procured. When he embarked at Marseilles,
tears filled his eyes as six of his cardinals, turning
their back on him, went their way to Avignon.

Violent storms beat upon the papal fleet between
Marseilles and Villafranca ; a bishop was drowned
and cargoes were jettisoned ; tempestuous seas delayed
his departure from Villafranca, and had it not been
for Catherine's presence at Genoa the buffeted pope
and cardinals would have returned to Avignon.
Storms again met them as they sailed to Corneto,
and at length the weary pontiff and his court reached
Rome, where, on January 17, 1377, they were wel-
comed with frantic joy. Gregory entered the sacred
city, not as Catherine had hoped, like a gentle lamb
with none other weapon than the Cross of Christ in
his hand and love and peace in his heart, but accom-
panied by 2000 ruffianly mercenaries. A bitter
disillusionment followed the solemn entry of Gregory
to the Garden of the Church. No Albornoz had
met him with the keys of a hundred cities ; ill-will,
suspicion, conspiracy, revolt, enveloped him on every
side, and a horrible butchery at Cesena, perpetrated
by papal mercenaries a short month after his welcome
to Rome, served to deepen Italian hatred to a Gallic
Curia. The Cesenese, goaded by the brutality and
insolence of the Cardinal of Geneva's Breton garrison,
rose as one man and slew 300 of them : the cardinal,
furious at the rebellious citizens, summoned the
English company under Hawkwood from Faenza
and bade them join the Bretons in an exemplary
chastisement. A hideous massacre ensued ; 4000
men, women and children were cut to pieces amid

178

Return of the Papacy to Rome

scenes of unspeakable atrocity ; thousands of fugitives
diffused the shameful story of Cesena over the length
and breadth of Italy and won for Gregory the title
o'i il papa gumtaudo. Much foolish romance has been
woven about the career of Hawkvvood and his band
of organized cut-throats. At the capture and
sack of Faenza the dreaded condottiere, then in
Florentine service, caught sight of two of his officers
about to enter on a mortal combat for the possession
of a beautiful young nun ; fearing lest he might thus
lose one or both of his best fighters, Hawkwood
coolly drew his dagger and stabbed her to the heart.
The object, however, of the chronicler^ in telling the
story is even more significant than the incident itself,
common enough not to awaken an\' special interest
in a mediaeval scribe. The fate of the young nun is
related, not as an example of unusual ferocity, but as
a striking proof of answer to prayer : for, on being
captured, the bride of Christ had prayed that her
virginity might be preserved.

Florence and her allies, finding the struggle with
the papacy too exhausting, at length sought the
mediation of the King of France, and while peace
negotiations were in progress at Sarzana, Gregory,
prematurely aged — he was but forty-seven — heart-
broken and haunted by gloom}- forebodings, expired
at Rome on March 27, 1378. The Italians never
forgot and never forgave the Gallic captivity at
Avignon, and from that day to this no Frenchman
has ever sat in Peter's chair at Rome.

^ MuRAtoRi: Cronica Sanest; Vol. XV. pp. 221, 222.

179

CHAPTER XII

THE GREAT SCHISM URBAN VI. V. CLEMENT VII A POPE

AGAIN AT AVIGNON FROIS5ART AT AVIGNON ST.

PIERRE DE LUXEMBOURG.

The breath had not left the frail body of Gregory XI
when the Bandarcn forced their way into the chamber
of death, and, having assured themselves the end was
near, at once took steps to force the election of an
Italian pope. Entreaties, menaces were employed
with individual cardinals, guards were stationed at
the bridges and gates of the city with orders to let
no cardinal leave, rudders of vessels in the Tiber were
unshipped, sails removed, bands of rough highlanders
and contadini crowded into the city. The story of
the amazing conclave that met in Rome during
Passion Week in 1378 is hopelessly involved amid a
mass of conflicting authorities and shrouded in im-
penetrable darkness by partisan testimony. There is
no reason for imputing intentional filsehood to the
writers. In the riot and confusion, thrice con-
founded, each saw but partially and what he wanted
to see, or what the heat of party passion burnt in his
memory. 1 Civic officers, appointed by the Bandaresi,
made public display of energy ; they set up a block
and a double-edged axe on the piazza of St. Peter's

' Compare Baluze, Vols. I. pp. 454-779, and II. pp. 816-822,
with the Bishop of Lucera's version, Muratori: Rei. Ital. Scrip.,
III. pt. 2.

180

77/t' Great Schism

to inspire with terror any who should molest the car-
dinals ; but they were either powerless to keep order or
sympathized with popular violence, for as the cardinals
approached the Vatican each had to run the gauntlet
of an angry mob, threatening him with death unless
he elected a Roman or, at least, an Italian pope.
" Orgulous wordes," says Froissart, " the Romaynes
used : ' Syrs,' they cried, * advyse you well : if ye
delyver us a pope Romayne we be content or els
wc woU make your heades redder than your hattcs.' "
Small wonder that such " manasshes abasshed greatly
the cardynals who had rather dyed confessours than
martyrs." The fighting cardinal Robert of Geneva
strode to the conclave wearing a cuirass under his
tunic ; the Cardinal of Anagni made his will, for the
very thunderbolts of heaven, falling upon the ill-
omened conclave building, a day before they met, had
destroyed the cell prepared for him.

Sixteen cardinals — eleven French or Limousin, one
Spanish and four Italian — at length took their seats
in conclave on Wednesday, April 7, while 20,000
Romans filled the piazza, or climbed the roofs of the
houses, uttering deafening shouts o'i Romano lo volemo
0 almanco Italiano ! All that evening and all that
night the wine shops were crowded by a riotous
mob dancing and shouting ribald songs : some of the
revellers broke into the \\itican cellars and drank the
pope's rich Greek and Malmsey wines. The civic
guards, who occupied the chamber beneath the con-
clave, prodded the celling with their lances, set fire
to the rushes from the floor to warm themselves, the
poor trembling cardinals getting no sleep — none,
save the old cardinal of St. Peter's, who appears to
have snored through it all — and fearing they were to
be burnt alive in their beds. At the morning mass

181

Avignon

the celebrant's voice could not be heard for the
shouting of the rioters, some of whom climbed to
the belfry of St. Peter's and rang n stormo. Crowd
was added to crowd, and so critical became the
situation that the papal officer outside the conclave
door implored the cardinals to satisfy the Roman
people ; whereupon the Cardinal of Aigrefeuille is
said to have plucked Cardinal Orsini's robe and cried,
" Let us elect the devil himself rather than perish
thus."

While the cardinals were formally completing the
election of Bartolommeo Prignano, Archbishop of
Bari, so tumidtuose et horribiliter grew the cries that
Cardinal Orsini strode to the window of the conclave
chamber, only to be met with howls of execration
from the mob. " Silence, ye Roman pigs," shouted
he : " You have a pope ! To St. Peter's ! " ^ In
the confusion Orsini was indistinctly heard, and part
of the crowd, believing Tibaldeschi, Cardinal of St.
Peter's, had been chosen, went off rejoicing to pillage
his house ; a French cardinal meanwhile shouting,
" No ! no ! Bari ! Bari ! " He, too, was misunder-
stood, and the remaining and larger part of the crowd,
thinking the late pope's kinsman, Jean de Bar, was
meant, attacked the conclave door with axes and
stoned the windows. Cardinal Robert of Geneva
confessed himself, and some of the scared cardinals
implored the gouty old Tibaldeschi to save the lives of
his colleagues by lending himself to a temporary decep-
tion and offer himself to the crowd as the elect of the
conclave. Cardinal Orsini proposed to dress up a
friar as pope, parade him, and then escape in the
confusion and hold another conclave elsewhere ;

^ Meaning go to St. Peter's and aw.iit the proclamation of the
new pope.

'The Great Schism

other cardinals tried to barricade tiie door. The
young Spanish cardinal, Pedro de Luna, one of the
few that kept a clear head and stout heart, and of
whom we shall hear more later, entered the chapel,
saying, " If I am to die I will die here." Meanwhile
the papal officer was forced at the sword's point to
surrender the keys, the conclave was invaded and
pillaged, six cardinals escaping disguised to the Castle
of St. Angelo, held for the French cardinals by its
Provencal governor, whither the papal treasure had
been sent. The poor trembling old Cardinal
Tibaldeschi was then pushed by some of the cardinals
into the papal chair ; his nephew smote him on the
breast to make him sit down, who all the while, with
quavering voice, protested " I am not the pope," and
tried to shake the crown from his brow. The
Romans, seeing this, cried Fa, che tu s'la maledetto !
and, more dead than alive, the fainting victim was
carried away to the papal bedchamber.

By the evening of the ninth, matters appear to have
quieted down, and four cardinals were able to escape
from Rome during the night : the twelve remaining
cardinals then proceeded on the tenth to the formal
enthronement of the Bishop of Bari, who chose to be
known as Urban VI, thus emphasizing his deter-
mination to remain a Roman pope. Had prudence
as well as zeal informed the new pontifPs acts, the
Great Schism would, in all human probability, never
have rent Christendom asunder. Urban, a Nea-
politan subject of the Angevin dynasty of the Two
Sicilies, and well known at Avignon, was chosen as a
candidate likely to prove, on the whole, acceptable to
the French monarchy ; he belonged to none of the
three factions, Limousin, French or Italian, who
sought to dominate the electors and who, as so often

183

Avignofi

has happened in distracted conclaves, had united to
choose an outsider, each faction hoping to control his
policy. But the cardinals had raised a Frankenstein
indeed. With feverish zeal, the new pontiff set
about purging the Curia and the prelacy of worldly
and unworthy ecclesiastics. Impetuous and choleric,
he would brook no opposition, and angrily silenced
any who essayed to reply to his vehement denunciations
of the flagrant luxury of the princes of the Church, who
with their hundred horses and regal pomp, devoured
the revenues of a score of bishoprics. Thomas of
Acerno tells how immense tiirhati et scandalixati the
cardinals were when Urban threatened to pack the
Curia with Italians, and how he saw Cardinal Robert
of Geneva, who sat by the pope, change colour and
turn pale in Consistory.^ Theodoric of Niem, an
Urbanist, informs us that the new pope railed at the
prelates and called them perjurers. Preaching from the
text Ego sum pastor bonus in full Consistory, he revolted
the cardinals by the abuse he levelled against them.^
Thus was all healing of the strife rendered impossible ;
St. Catherine's appeal to temper justice with charity
fell on deaf ears, and even the most partisan of the
Urbanist chroniclers. Bishop Thomas of Lucera,
complains that the new pope was asper et r'lgorosus.

There appears to have been no immediate action
on the part of the French cardinals ; they acquiesced
in Urban's election ; they sued for favours after he
had been crowned ; they informed the Avignon
cardinals of his elevation, whose subsequent acts
implied acceptance. But they loved him not, and
gradually the pontiff's violence engendered hostility
in the whole college : even the Italian cardinals were

1 Muratori, Vol. III. pt. 2, p. 725.

^ Theodoricus de Niem : De Schhmate, pp. 16, 17. Ed, 1890.

Urban VI v, Clement VII

disgusted, and soon the implacable Urban found him-
self, although the master of the greater part of Rome,
abandoned by nearly all his court. On September 20,
1378, having declared Urban deposed, the cardinals
met at Fondi, protected by the Count of Fondi, who
was smarting under Urban's prepotency, and elected a
new pope, the warlike Cardinal Robert of Geneva.
The butcher of Cesena who, apparently without any
suspicion of incongruity, chose to be known as
Clement VII, was crowned at the classic city of Fondi
with the tiara which the Archbishop of Aries had
succeedeci, together with the jewels, in abstracting
from Rome. Sixteen cardinals were present at the
election : twelve voted for, and one against, Clement.
The three Italians remained neutral.

Clement, a kinsman of the French king,' soon won
over the monarchy to his cause ; his election was
hailed with joy at Avignon, and although some
recalcitrancy was displayed by the University of Paris,
it was overcome, and the " pestiferous intruder, with
damnable ambition," inaugurated the Great Schism.
Quo jure ? Quo animo ? Where the infallible Church
herself speaks with uncertain volce,^ and where heaven,
too, with impartial hand, has lavished the gifts of
sanctity and miraculous power on Clementine and
Urbanist alike, neutrality in a layman may well be
pardoned.

Grief and despair filled the minds of all good
Christian folk. Catherine, in piteous letters from
Siena, appealed to Cardinal Pedro de Luna to become
a firm and steadfast column in the garden of Holy
Church ; for war, dishonour and all worldly tribula-

' He was a cousin seventeen times removed of Charles V.
- See NoEi. Valois : l,a France et h Grand Schhme d' Occident^
1.4.

185

Avignon

tions are but as a shadow or a show compared with
this intolerable schism. Another passionate epistle
to Joan of Naples implores her support for Urban ;
she pours out the vials of her wrath on the cardinals
responsible for Clement's election ; they are not men,
but rather incarnate demons, and in a letter to the
Count of Fondi the schismatic cardinals are described
as worthy of a thousand deaths.^ For a while fortune
smiled on Clement, but the prestige of Urban's name
and hatred of the old Gallic Curia proved too power-
ful, and after a temporary and humiliating excursion
to Naples, Clement set sail with all his cardinals save
two for Provence: on June 20, 1379, Avignon
opened wide her gates to receive another pope, and
the five French cardinals gave a magnificent welcome
to Clement VII, who rode in, scattering money among
the people.

What the return of the papal court to Avignon
meant to the city will be manifest from the following
event, which it would be sacrilege to relate other
than in the picturesque periods of Froissart.

It is October 1389, and the mad King Charles VI
having, in one of his lucid intervals, " departed fro
his house of Beautie ^ besyde Parys & at length being
at Lyons with the four royal dukes, determined to
pass the bridge at Avignon & to go & se the Pope ;
& about ix of the clocke in the mornyng passed the
bridge & acompanyed with his brother & his thre
uncles & xii cardynalles so went to the Popes palays;
& pope Clement was redy in his chambre of Consys-
torie syttyng in his chayre of papalyte. Whan the
Frenche kyng came into the chambre & sawe the
Pope, he enclyned himself, & whan he came nere,

1 Tommaseo: Vol. IV. Lettere ccxcVn, cccxii, cccxiii.

2 The Hotel St. Paul.

186

A Pope again at Avignon

the Pope arose iSc the kyng kyst his hande & his
mouthe. Than the Pope sat downe & caused the
kyng to syt downe by hyni on a place purposely
prepared for him. Than the dukes kyst the Popes
hand (Sc sate down among the cardynals. Anone it
was tyme of dyner ; than they drewe into the Popes
great chambre where the tables were redy covered.
The Pope wasshcd & satte downe at a table alone &
kept his estate. The Frenche kyng satte downe at
another table alone & the cardynalles and dukes
satte downe in order. The dyner was plentyfull &
after dyner they haddc wyne & spyces. Than the
kyng & the four dukes went into their chambres ; eche
of them hadde a chambre apparelled in the palays &
there they taryed a certayne dayes. The v. day after
that the kyng came thyder, the yonge crle of Savoy,
cosyn to the kj-ng and nephuc to the duke of Burbone,
came thyder : the kyng was right joyful of his
commyng. The French kynge, the Duke of Thou-
rayne his brother & the erle of Savoye who were
lyght of corage & of spyrite, thoughe they were
loged in the Popes palays nere to the Pope & to the
Cardynalles yet for all that they wolde not absteyne
to daunce & to caroll and to make sporteamonge the
ladyes and damoselles of Avignon : & the erle of
Genesve brother to the Pope brought theym in
aquayntauncc with the ladyes & damoselles of the
towne. The kynge gave great gyftes to the ladyes &
damoselles whereby he had great laude and prayse.
. , . 'I'hus the kynge taryed there a certayne season
in great joye & sporte. And for joye of the kyngs
commynge thyder the Pope opeyncd his graces to all
clerkes beyng in the courte for the space of a moneth
& gave nomynacions to the kyng of all coledges &
cathedrals. . . . The Pope was so curteose & lyberall

187

Avignon

that for love of the kynges commyng he graunted
every thyng that was asked." ^

The prince of chroniclers had cause to remember
that year in Avignon, for was he not there himself in
the train of the lovely child-bride of twelve summers
whom his patron, the Count of Foix, her guardian,
had bartered to the old Duke of Berry for thirty
thousand florins of gold ? and did he not meet with
a stroke of ill-luck there which he has set to verse
in one of the most charming poems of the fourteenth
century ? When the chronicler set forth on his
journey his heart was light and his pocket heavy with
a munificent present from his patron —

"... quatre-vins florins
D'Aragon tous pesans ct fins."

Of these eighty gold florins of Aragon, Froissart, as
ill-hap would have it, changed sixty at a money-
changer's at Avignon — it was Friday — and received for
them forty ringing francs of gold. That ill-omened
day, too, he had bought a cheap little purse for three
pence, and buried his pieces of gold therein.

On the following Sunday he had risen, " moult
matin," and went to early mass, and he well remem-
bered that the evening before he had carefully enclosed
the small purse in a big one ; and lo ! —

" Quant je cuidai trouver mes frans
Certes je ne trouvai rien nee,"

and, by the soul of his father, he never saw them
again. At length he discovers one solitary florin in
a corner of his purse. " Diex ! doux valet ! " he
exclaims, " es tu ci quails ! " In his rage Froissart
seizes the florin between his teeth, bites it savagely,

J Chronicles^ Vol, V, ch. clvi,

i88

Froissart at Avignon

flings it on a stone, draws his knife and swears, " par
ce hatericl," that he will cut it in four pieces and take
it to the goldsmith's melting-pot if it will not tell
where its companions have flown. The outraged
florin then deprecates his wrath and essays defence
and consolation : was not the master always a spend-
thrift r Did not he squander long ago a hundred
good florins, knowing that " Argcns fait avoir bene-
fisces " for —

"... rcxpectatioii lontainnc
Sus Ics chanesies de Lille ?"

and, by St. Giles ! was he not still waiting for that
canonry, although the pope had promised it within a
year ? And had he not spent, and well spent, seven
hundred livres on his chronicles alone r And —

" I.cs taverniers de Lcstines
En ont eu bien cinq cens frans."

And had he not travelled over England, Scotland
and Wales and had gay times over the length and
breadth of France, his florins speaking all languages
for him, and led a life so joyous and so amorous that,
by St. Giles ! he had had the value of twice forty
golden francs ; and had he not good friends as of
yore ? Well, be not a fool : away with care ! lightly
come, lightly go. Thus the florin ; and so the im-
pecunious scribe fares gaily on his spendthrift and
garrulous way. It had been ever thus with him :
money ran through his fingers like water ; never a
wight so apt as he in getting rid of francs and florins ;
his pockets were always empty, and yet he knew not
how the money went. True —

"J'en ai moult perdu au prester
II est fols qui preste sans gage ;"

189

AvigJion

but that did not explain his recurrent impecuniosity.
He never built churches, nor mansions, nor ships,
nor clocks, nor did he buy silks, nor merchandise ;
yet all his money flew away as if it had wings, and
he was ever pursuing and never catching it.^

The line of the great schism had followed the
political cleavage. France and Scotland adhered to
Clement ; England and the English provinces of
France to Urban. Germany was divided : the Rhine
provinces, the Archbishop of Mainz, the Dukes ot
Luxembourg and Lorraine and other princes in the
orbit of the French monarchy, the Duke of Bavaria,
stood for Clement, while the greater part of the
empire held for Urban. The Kings of Cyprus,
Castile and Portugal, the Duke of Brittany, were
Clementine ; Flanders, Poland and Hungary were
Urbanist, while Naples, save for a brief relapse, held
to the Avignon obedience.

Clement, who was in the prime of manhood when
the strife began, set vigorously to work ; he sacrificed
honour, wealth, even the independence of the Holy
See, to win the strong arm of Louis of Anjou, to
whom he offered a vast kingdom, to be known as
Adria, in north and central Italy, and the revenues of
the two Sicilies. In 1383 Louis, at the head of a
mighty army, set forth on his expedition after a
solemn progress through the streets of Avignon, from
the cathedral to the Cordeliers, his consecrated banner
waving in the wind and followed by the cardinals on
foot. High pay, plunder, with the promise of papal
indulgences, attracted the usual bands of cut-throats,
and in nine years Clement squandered half-a-million

' " Le Dit dou Florin," Poesies de Froissart, ed. A. Scheler,
Vol. II. xi. Brussels, 1871.

190

Pierre de Luxembourg

Horins on Anjcm's ahorlivc and ill-fated' campaigns in
Italy.

Then was seen the grievous spectacle ot two
claimants to the vicariate of the Prince of Peace on
earth, seeking to prove their title by bloodshed and
chicanery, each reviling and cursing the other.

At this juncture, however, Clement, by a happ)-
inspiration, bethought him of a youthful prodigy he
had met at Fondi, Pierre, son of Guy of Luxem-
bourg, Count of St. Paul in Picardy, who, at nine
years of age, had won fame in Paris for his learning
and sanctity, and who a year later had surrendered
himself to the English, while his brother, their
prisoner, collected the necessary ransom. After nine
months' captivity Pierre returned to his austerities
and studies in Paris, and was soon elevated by
Clement to the bishopric of Metz. The pontiff, after
creating him Cardinal of St. Gregory of the Golden
\'cil, called Pierre to his court at Avignon, and for
three years, by his piety, his learning, his macerations
the young cardinal drew the eyes of Christendom to
the Rhone. In his eighteenth year Pierre de Luxem-
bourg died a saintly death at Villeneuve on July
5, 1387, after having compelled his servants to
administer discipline as he lay on his deathbed.
Popular enthusiasm had already canonized Luxem-
bourg ; great multitudes gathered for his burial at
the common cemetery of the poor, called of St.
Michael, where he had desired to be laid : despite
a guard of soldiers, the crowd seized on his shroud
and vestments and rent them into a thousand
pieces ; they splintered the bier into fragments, and
many miracles were wrought by a touch of his body.
Pilgrims flocked to his grave in the poor man's acre ;
' Louis died at Bari, September 20, 1^84.

191

Avignon

the miraculous effluence rained alike on Urbanists
and Clementines, some of the former exclaiming in
their bewilderment: " D online si error est a te decepti
sumus y^ No less than three thousand miracles are
attested by the papal commissioners and collected by
them in six large volumes, " and not of the common
sort, 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." 1

Many Urbanists were converted to the Clementine
obedience, and a settlement of twelve Celestine fathers
watched over the poor little wooden chapel that
marked the saint's resting-place. But rich oblations
poured in — gold and jewels from the king and nobles
of France — and in 1395 the royal Dukes of Berry,
Orleans and Burgundy laid, in the name of the king,
the first stone of a sumptuous church and monastery.
St. Pierre de Luxembourg was not formally beatified
by Clement, who followed the usual routine in such
matters, and it was reserved to Clement's namesake
— -Clement VII of the Medici — to enrol Luxembourg
among the blessed, on April 9, 1527.'^

Meanwhile, Urban's tyrannous rule was alienating
his best friends. Theodoric of Niem, an Urbanist,
has left us graphic pictures of Urban's suspicious and
cruel nature. Theodoric saw the arrest of six car-
dinals for supposed treason at Nocera, the cardinals
Peter and Paul speechless for grief and weeping
bitterly while the implacable pontiff scornfully bade
them be gone and not whine like women. As Theo-
doric appealed for mercy Urban's face glowed with

1 Baluze, Vol. I p. 516.

- IbiJ., pp. 515-517- Acta Sanctorum: Julii Die secunda,
p. 551.

192

Pierre de Luxembourg

rage like a burning coal, and he almost choked with
passion : " As well seek to snatch the prey from a
lion's mouth." He was present when the cardinals
were dragged in chains to the torture-chamber ; he
saw the Cardinal of Sangro shiver at the sight of the
ropes of the strappado ^ hanging from the roof, and
heard Urban's disreputable nephew, Francesco Pri-
gnano, burst into a loud laugh when the executioner
seized hold of the trembling cardinal and bound him
to the rack : the cardinal, tall and corpulent, swooned
under the torture. The Cardinal of Venice, a feeble,
sick and broken old man, was tortured from morning
till noon, ever repeating Chr'istus pro nobis passus est,
Urban meanwhile pacing along a garden above the
dungeon loudly reciting the office to spur on the
executioners by his presence. Theodoric, sickened
by the horrible scene, pleaded a headache, and ob-
tained permission to retire to the infirmary. Urban,
on leaving Nocera, dragged the prisoners with him ;
and since the Bishop of Aquila, racked and bruised,
and riding a miserable old hack, was unable to keep
pace with the main body of the army, the pope,
infuriated by the thought that he might fall behind
and escape, ordered him to be dispatched : the
miserable prelate was then butchered in cold blood
and his body flung on the wayside. When Urban
left Genoa in December 1386, five of the cardinals
were drowned or strangled,- or, according to the
Clementine story, buried alive, " the devil, whose
ministers they were, thus rewarding his servants
according to his wont."^

1 See p. 69, torture of Bartholomew Cannolati.
^ Theodoricus ue Nykm : De Schismate, pp. 78-110. Ed.
G. Ehrler. 1890.

■' Baluze, Vol. I. p. 115.

o 193

Avignon

Never had the papacy fallen so low. The power
that had trodden on the pride of mighty emperors
and humbled great kings in the dust was now the
scorn of secular princes ; " the grete lordes of the
erthe," says Froissart, " dyd nothing but laughe at
the chyrche." Each of the pontiffs appealed to the
basest passions that sway men's minds ; each hurled
maledictions on his rival and offered paradise to
crusading mercenaries ; each sought by levies on the
credulity or ambition of their supporters to obtain
means to win the love of poor soldiers. " He who
wrote hymselve pope Urbane sixt," continues Frois-
sart, " bled the English so that at London and in
the dyoses was gathered a towre ful of golde and
sylver," and he found means to gather together great
riches, " for he knewe wele the nobles of Englande
for all his absolucyons wolde not ryde forthe in
warre without money." Even St. Catherine herself
did not scruple to appeal to the lust for plunder in
the Urbanist mercenaries. In a letter to the low-
born condottiere of the Company of St. George,
her " dearest brother in Christ sweet Jesus," and his
officers, Caterina, slave of the servants of Jesus Christ,
assures them that whether they live or die in the
holy warfare they cannot but gain : if they fall they
have the reward of life eternal ; if they live, foras-
much as they have offered willing sacrifice of them-
selves to God, they may keep the spoil they win with
a good conscience ; ^ and if false men tell them Urban
VI is not pope they lie in their throats.

On October 15, 1389, Urban VI, to the relief
of friend and foe alike, died at Rome. His cardinals,
having declined to meet the old college of cardinals,
twenty-one of whom were at Avignon, and re-elect

^ E la sostanaa potrete tenere con buona coscienza. Lettere,
Vol. IV. p. 347.

194

Pierre de Luxemhourg

Clement, chose Pietro Perrino di Torracelli, and
crowned him as Boniface IX. Boniface's first act was
to excommunicate the intruder at Avignon, who, in
his turn, fulminated a similar malediction against
the invader of the apostolic chair, "the successor in
vice and crime of the said Bartolommco of damned
memory." '

On September i6, 1394, Clement \'II lay in tlie
grip of death at the palace of Avignon, surrounded
by cardinals and bishops, and as the darkness closed
over him, conscience-stricken, his stormy life seems to
have passed before his mental vision and the dread
approach to the judgment seat of God wrung his
soul. It is not often we are able to be present at
the solemn last scene in the chambers of the great ;
but the story by an eye-witness of Pope Clement's
end has come down to us.- The dying pontiff,
clasping his hands together, placed them before his
face, then lifting up his eyes to heaven he cried :
" Benu sire D'leu ! Ah, beau sire Dieii ! I pra}- Thee
have mercy on my soul, and deign to pardon my
sins ; and thou, very sweet Mother of God, lend me
thy aid with thy blessed Son our Lord." Then he
lay quiet a little while, but soon added these words :
" Oh, all ye blessed saints of Paradise, I beseech you
help my soul this day ; " and after he had said this
he broke forth again, " Ah ! Ah ! Luxembourg,
Luxembourg ; thee, too, I pray, vouchsafe thy aid."
The prelates standing round his bedside then began
to pray for the healing of his sickness, and made vows
to visit the holy shrines. The dying sinner, with an
access of energy, interrupted them, crying aloud :
" No, no ! pray for my soul ! pray for my soul ! "

1 Baluze, Vol. I. p. 525.

2 Ri'citde la mart du pape Clement P'll. Bibliotheque d' Avignon,
MS. 2395.

o 2 195

Avignon

These words said, he fell back into the arms of his
watchers and his burdened soul went to her account.
Except for some slight discharge from the face he
then lay as one asleep.^

After a solemn lying-in-state and provisional burial
in Notre Dame des Doms, the body of Pope
Clement VII, of the Avignon obedience, was trans-
lated to the magnificent new church of the Celestin
Fathers, and finally interred beneath the aegis of the
saintly young Cardinal Pierre de Luxembourg.
Clement is described by his biographers as endowed
with many eminent qualities of mind and body.
Although slightly lame, he concealed this defect by
his majestic stature and noble port. He had a hand-
some face and sonorous voice, which he used to
advantage when he celebrated the offices of the
Church ; he wrote and dictated excellently well ; was
prudent in council, patient under adversity ; never
elated by success nor depressed by defeat ; he had
affable, winning manners, and was gracious and easy of
access to all. In contrast with his predecessors he
held few Consistories and those at a late hour ; he was
always magnificent and sometimes prodigal in his
favours. He gave 4000 florins to each of the
cardinals to commemorate his joyeuse avenement ; so
lavish was his expenditure that in 1 38 1 he paid
interest on a loan at 36 per cent. ; in 1391 the
Curia suspended payment and Clement is said to
have pawned the papal jewels and tiara ; so low was
the credit of the Avignon Chamber that Clement's
funeral expenses were only met by the generosity of
his captain-general, Fernando de Heredia.

^ Absque eo quod aliquam sorditiam emiserit per os, per nares, per
aures, et per aliquam partem corporis, imo -visus est omnibus dor mire et
talis semper apparuit in 'vultu.

196

CHAPTER XIII

BENEDICT XIII SIEGE OF THE PAPAL PALACE END OF

THE GREAT SCHISM.

No time was lost in providing a successor to the
Avignon chair, for the French Icing and clergy, wearying
of the schism, had begun to waver in their allegiance,
and it was known to the leading cardinals that mes-
sengers from Paris were on their way to the con-
clave, urging compromise with Rome. The letters
were left unopened, and on September 26, 1392, the
cardinals entered conclave : two days later the
illustrious Spanish cardinal, Pedro de Luna, — that
firm and steadfast column of the Church to whom St.
Catherine had turned as its saviour in the early days
of the schism, — was elected by twenty out of twenty-
one votes. The intrepid Spaniard, who chose to be
known as Benedict XIII, although sixty-six years of
age at his elevation, was still full of energy : temper-
ate, chaste, spare of body, fearless, imbued with an
unshaken confidence in the validity of his election ;
upright and just and zealous, he was a formidable
protagonist of the Avignon obedience. The conclave
that elected him was the most representative in
Christendom ; it was chiefly composed of the older
and pre-schismatic cardinals, and although as Pedro
de Luna, with seventeen of his colleagues, he
had sworn on the Holy Gospels a self-denying
ordinance pledging himself to resign, if it should

197

Avignon

prove necessary to do so for the sake of unity,'
as Benedict XIII he set vigorously to work to
affirm his position as the one and only elect of the
Holy Ghost. On May 22, 1395, a magnificent
embassy, headed by the royal dukes of Orleans,
Burgundy, and Berry, and reinforced by many
cardinals, implored Benedict to resign the tiara and
bring peace and unity to the Church. Long negotia-
tions and many solemn audiences and conferences
ensued, but Benedict stood firm as a tower ; he, God's
Vicar on earth, would yield to no secular pressure ; he
would resign only if the intruder at Rome first set the
example. To all Benedict had one answer : " Sith
God of His deveyne grace hathe provyded for me the
papal}'te, as long as I lyve I wyll be Pope and I wyll
not depose myself nouther for kyng, duke, erle, nor
other treatye, but I wyll abyde Pope." King and
clergy then determined to take strong measures, and
on September i, 1398, Robert Cordelier and Tristan
de Bosco, the royal heralds, stood on the bridge-head
at Villeneuve, and at sound of trumpet proclaimed
the withdrawal of the realm and clergy of France
from Benedict of Avignon : the major part of the
cardinals and papal officers, including the Bullarius
with the papal seal, followed their lead, abandoned
Benedict, and crossed over to Villeneuve.

The royal seceders then appointed Godfrey of
Meingres, known as Boucicault, their captain-
general, with orders to seize Pedro de Luna and his
followers ; and Cardinal Villeneuve, on September
16, entered Avignon in Boucicault's train to incite the
citizens to rise. Seated on a charger, red-robed, but
without his pallium, the cardinal rode through the
streets and market-places, sword by side and baton in
' Baluze, Vol. I. pp. 567-576.
198

Benedict XITI

hand, shouting " Five le sacre College et la v'llle
(T Avignon ! ''' After a stormy meeting in the church
of St. Didier, the citizens decided to throw in their
lot with the Villencuve cardinals.

Benedict, having under his command a picked body
of nine hundred Catalans, which the King of Aragon
had sent for his protection, prepared to defend himself
within the palace, and Boucicault began a formal in-
vestment. The besiegers held the town, the cathedral,
the wall and gates, and the papal granaries ; Benedict
was master of the tower at the bridge-head, and cut oft"
access from Villeneuve by destroying two arches.
Admirable discipline was kept by the besieged
pope and his five faithful cardinals, who, with
certain good and true abbots, went their nightly
rounds to inspect the posts and maintain the courage
of their little force. A few days, however, sufficed
Boucicault to capture the bridge tower, and on
September 29 it fell into his hands. The besiegers
then placed artillery there to batter down the palace
walls, whereupon Rodrigo de Luna, Benedict's nephew
and commander of the papal force, replied by hurling
stones against the cathedral tower. Boucicault had
the advantage of possessing cannon, and the cardinal
of Neuchatel directed a hot fire from a bombard
placed at the episcopal palace : a well-aimed shot
crashed against and splintered a window of the palace
near which Benedict stood, directing operations, and
slightly wounded him. It was St. Michael's Day,
and for reverence of the saint, whose chapel was one
of the most beautiful in the palace, Benedict forbade
his captain to reply. Eminence after eminence was
gradually occupied by Boucicault's artillery : from
the palace tower of the Cardinal of Saluces ; ^ from

' Near the Rue Saluces.

'99

Avignon

the towers of the Cardinal of Florence on the Place
Pie and of the Cardinal of Albano ^ ; from the church
of St. Symphorien, a ring of fronds, mangonels, bom-
bards, and ballisters hailed stones on the great palace.
The besiegers fired the wood-store in the Tour de
Trouillas, which burned fiercely for four days; mine
was met by counter-mine ; assaults were repulsed by
the boiling oil, molten lead and pitch poured down
through the machicoulis of the ramparts and towers.
All the resources of a formal siege having failed to
make any impression on the stout walls of the fortress
or on the no less stout hearts of its defenders,
braggart Boucicault, who had promised in a few days
to dance with the ladies of Avignon in the captured
palace, began to fume with rage and gave orders for
a final effort. Tearing down the bronze doors of the
cathedral to form a shield, his sappers and miners set
vigorously to work, while the artillery shot their
heaviest bolts against the ramparts ; the mine was
fired and a breach made : but while the Catalans
repulsed the assailants, Benedict's servants, even priests
and abbots, filled up the breach.

On Saturday, October 26, Boucicault made a
desperate attempt to capture the palace by surprise.
In the early morning sixty picked men, led by one
Hardouin, his kinsman, crept along the great sewer
that led from the papal kitchens to the Sorguette.^
They were furnished with axes, crowbars, hammers,
ropes, and some sacks to hold their plunder, together
with a royal pennant to hoist over the palace when
captured. All went well until the invaders neared the
opening into the kitchen, when, as ill luck would have
it, a master usher of the papal chamber happened to

^ On the site of the present Hotel de Ville.
" A tributary of the Sorguc. See page 220.

Siege of the Papal Palace

be descending the steps that led to the kitchen, and
hearing mysterious noises, gave the ahirm. The great
bell crashed out its call to arms; trumpets blared,
and with admirable celerity the guards rushed, half-
dressed, into the kitchen, as though, says the
chronicler, they were expecting a fine supper there.
Meanwhile a messenger, pale as death, entered the
papal bed-chamber with the news. Benedict rose
from his bed and with imperturbable courage bade
the man return and help in the fight, exclaiming as
he dressed : " They are ours ! " And so it proved.
After a short but sharp scuffle fifty-six were taken, and
the besieged spent the whole day rejoicing and praising
God and the Virgin Mary for their happy deliverance.
Wearily the siege dragged on ; an attempt by King
Martin of Aragon to bring a relieving fleet up the
Rhone was foiled ; the palace was still invested;
famine and wounds had decimated the garrison, and
ihey were forced to eke out their stores by feeding
on rats, cats, and sparrows, the last-named delicacy
being reserved for Benedict's table. At length, after
many negotiations between the pope, the cardinals,
and the court of France, a truce was made on April
3, 1399. Its chief provisions were : a mutual ex-
change of prisoners ; the Catalans to be dismissed,
the palace provisioned. At the end of the month
the envoy of France and Benedict's representative
stood on the threshold, and one hundred and nine
men-at-arms, gaunt and scarred, filed out of the
palace. The pope, still blockaded, was left with but
one hundred servants. Negotiations, long and com-
plicated, ensued between Benedict and the court of
France, and on March 30, 1401, the Avignon pope
pledged himself to abdicate on the death, resignation,
or expulsion of the " intruder" at Rome.

201

Avignon

Benedict, though still blockaded in the palace, had
gained half a victory ; the wind was veering, and
signs of a reaction in his favour were apparent. In
May, Provence was won to his cause ; Charles V'l,
in one of his lucid intervals, appeared to desire a
return to the Avignon obedience, and Benedict at
length resolved to break through the net which had

^TW— ^^v.""?*^

^.^

~ O''*-

CHATEAURENARI)

entangled him for four and a half years. The Duke
of Orleans lent him a brave Norman knight, Robert
of Braquemont, and after a secret conference with the
pontiff, Robert concerted measures for his escape.

On the night of March 12, 1402, a few stones
having been secretly removed from a walled-up door
of the palace, Benedict, disguised and pressing the
consecrated host to his breast, stole out, accompanied

Siege of the Papal Pa /ace

by his faithful physician, his valet, and a Spanish
nobleman : he was met in the street by Braquemont
and the Constable of Aragon, and the little party
succeeded in gaining, unperceived, the Aragonnais
Embassy. In the early dawn, as soon as the city gates
were opened, Benedict, disguised as Braquemont's
servant, strode boldly out of the Porte de Limas
(Oulle) ; a boat was waiting, manned by fourteen
sturdy oarsmen under the command of a monk, who
raced him down the Rhone and pulled steadily up
the Durance as far as the road to Chateaurenard,
where the Cardinal of Pampeluna with a swift horse
and eight men-at-arms was awaiting him : before
nine in the morning Benedict was safely lodged within
the walls of Chateaurenard, and in the evening was
joined by his three fliithful companions. It was St.
Gregory's day, and the grateful Benedict registered a
vow to build and dedicate a chapel to the sainted
pontiff.^

A curious detail of Benedict's escape has come
down to us. During his long captivity the pontiff
had allowed his hair and beard to grow, and when he
escaped, a venerable beard, two palms long, made
him resemble the patriarch Abraham. Louis II, of
Anjou, Count of Provence, who hati visited Benedict
in his captivity, and in whose domain he now was,
came to him on the morrow of his arrival and
begged the beard as a relic. Benedict, in the gayest
of humours, at once delivered his beard to the
shears of the count's barber, a Picard, laughing
heartily, and protesting the Normans had lied when
they talked of cutting off his head in Paris. Benedict

' Mistral, in a romantic poem, Nerto, has immortalized one
of tlic many legends floating about Provence of this dramatic
escape.

203

Avignon

rewarded the barber by a rich silver vessel and loo
francs, and enrolled him among his bodyguard :
Louis wrapped the venerable hair in fine linen
and preserved it as a memorial of the pope's long
captivity.^

Benedict XIII, free and unfettered, and under the
protection of Louis of Anjou, was far more formidable
than Pedro de Luna, a prisoner in the palace of
Avignon. His power and prestige were exalted as
if by magic ; the whole of the Venaissin submitted ;
three cardinals came from the revolted curia with
plenary powers, and on the evening of March 28,
a treaty of peace was signed. Benedict haughtily
claimed his victory as the triumph of right over
might, and a token of divine favour ; cardinals knelt
at his feet in tears, or, self-accused of rebellion,
fell prostrate in the mire as he went abroad. On
March 3 1 the keys of Avignon were brought to
Chateaurenard and laid at Benedict's feet ; the
barricades that blockeci the palace were burnt ; the
citizens illuminated their houses, and passed half
the night shouting, " Vive le Pape ! " Several days
were spent in feasting and rejoicing ; on the 4th
the papal standard waved again over the city gates,
and over the towers of the cardinals' palaces ; on the
5th a great procession paced through the streets —
two hundred children at its head, each bearing in
his hand at the end of a wand, the shield and device
6f Benedict XIII : similar scenes were witnessed in all
the towns of the Venaissin. But the battered palace
of the Rocher des Doms at Avignon never sheltered
pope again, for Benedict lodged no nearer than the
Chateau of Sorgues, although ere he left Sorgues,
Benedict was careful to garrison the palace, and forced

' Chron, Martin de Alpartis. Noel Valois : Schisme d'Occid.
204

Siege of the Papal Pa/ace

the citizens to make good its defences : Rodrigo, he
appointed Rector of Avignon and of the \'enaissin.

In 1407, France again withdrew her obedience, and
favoured the claims of a third pope, Alexander VI
of Pisa, and the pitiful spectacle of three popes, each
tearing at the seamless garment of Christ's Church,
shocked Christendom. Rodrigo was soon active again
in his uncle's cause, ^ for in March 1410, Randon,
Seigneur de Joycuse, marched into Villeneuve, and
once more on the bridge head stood a royal herald,
and at the sound of the trumpet, forbade the citizens
of Avignon to obey the deposed Benedict : Rodrigo's
answer was to fall upon them, break the trumpeter's
instrument over his head, and ride back to the palace
with several prisoners.

On April 30 Randon, with his 1000 men-at-arms
and some reinforcements brought by the Archbishop
of Lyons, began the second siege of the fortress-
palace of Avignon, and on May 19 thirty-six stout
horses dragged in the great bombard of Aix, which
four days later opened fire on the Tour de Trouillas.
Rodrigo defended the fortress with all his former skill
and valour, and even carried the war into the enemy's
camp, attacking \'illcneuve and seizing French vessels
on the Rhone. He raided French territory, held
prisoners to ransom, and taunted the besiegers with
their crazy king. On December I 3, however, the
bridge-tower was captured by the besiegers and
levelled to the ground, and on Christmas eve another
big bombard, which the citizens had cast, opened
fire on the palace. Spiritual thunders were added
to villainous saltpetre, for on January 12, 141 i, Pope
John XXIII, who had succeeded to the elect of Pisa,

' He had been exercising his archers by training them to
shoot at the statues on the walls of the palace.

Avignon

launched a crusade against the Benedictine obedience
with the usual lures of paradise and loot. The
citizens, infuriated at the loss of property wrought
by Rodrigo's artillery, demanded to be led to the
assault, and, reinforcements having been obtained
from Carpentras, a fierce but vain attack was made
(Sunday, February 15) on the impregnable palace.

PORTE D ORANGE, CARPENTRAS

No less than a thousand of the assailants are stated
to have paid for their rashness with their lives, and
the besiegers mournfully decided that in the tedium
of a blockade lay their only hope of reducing the
garrison. The ring was tightened round the palace ;
two men-at-arms caught introducing food were de-
capitated, and their heads exposed at the foot of the
Rocher. Benedict's efforts to raise the siege were
baulked by the Seneschal of Provence, who fell upon

206

Siege of the Papal Palace

the Catalan fleet as it slowly fought its way against
the current of the Rhone ; the stubborn courage
of the besieged was bending to the pressure of
famine ; their numbers were diminishing — only two
hundred were left to defend the walls — and in Sep-
tember they offered to capitulate. But the embittered
citizens refused all terms short of unconditional sur-
render ; they would butcher the Catalans like beasts
at the shambles : such was the fever of excitement
when the king's chamberlain, Philip of Poictiers, who
had been bidden by his master to muster enough
men to bring the siege to a rapid issue, came on the
scene. Philip at once negotiated with the heroic
defenders, and it was stipulated that if no help came
from Benedict within fifty days the garrison should
retire with military honours ; in the meantime, sup-
plies to the extent of five sheep, eight barrels of
wine, and eight florins' worth of fish should be
furnished to the garrison : on maigre days the sheep
might be replaced by an equivalent in eggs : two
envoys were to be given a safe conduct to advise
Benedict of the terms. The fifty days passed, and
to the eager watchers on the palace towers no reliev-
ing army appeared on the Rhone: on November 23,
141 I, the brave Catalans marched proudly out of the
palace, with banners flying and arms on shoulder
amid the ill-suppressed hatred of the citizens, and
crossed the Rhone to Villeneuve. As the last Catalan
left the palace the Archbishop of Narbonne, the papal
legate, took possession of the battered pile in the
name of John XXIII.

The legate immediately set about repairing the
damage wrought by the double siege, but on Sunday,
May 7, 141 3, a disastrous fire destroyed the Hall of
Consistory and the great dining-room, and demanded

207

Avignon

further expenditure on the part of the exhausted
treasury. In the autumn of 1414 news that Pope
John was on his way to Avignon caused a flutter of
excitement, and work was pushed forward with in-
creased vigour. The Emperor Sigismund, having
determined to intervene and put a period to the
scandal of three popes in Christendom, had forced
the Pisan pope to summon a council at Constance, and,
desiring to have a preliminary conference with the
royal dukes of France, Avignon was assigned for the
meeting-place. Galleys were dispatched to Pisa but
returned empty, and the conference never met : a
suggested transference of the council to Avignon
proved equally abortive.

But although the citizens were foiled in their
expectations of seeing a pope once more at Avignon,
they were rewarded by the solemn entr}' of the
Emperor Sigismund himself, who, on the night of
December 22, 141 5, rode through the Porte St.
Michel accompanied by fifty citizens bearing torches.
Sigismund, having vainly spent the autumn at Per-
pignon with Benedict, striving to induce the inflexible
old Spaniard to agree to resign in common with the
two rival pontiffs, had hastened to Avignon with the
avowed purpose of baulking Pope John's further
attempt to prolong the schism by fortifying himself
in the palace at Avignon and winning the support of
the French monarchy. The emperor had sworn to
drag John from the palace with his own hands if he
retired there, and, remembering the history of that
stout fortress, had thought it safer to anticipate John's
arrival. The procession, with the emperor riding
under a magnificent dais embroidered with the
Imperial and the city arms and the arms of the
College of Poictiers, made a gallant show as it wound

208

T'he End of the Great Schism

through the illuminated streets, accompanied by the
civic authorities clothed in rich scarlet, to the College
of Poictiers, near St. Agricol, where the emperor
was to he lodged in a fine suite of rooms sumptuously
decorated with tapestry : there a luxurious banquet
awaited him, and a munificent gift of 2000 francs of
gold.

On January 8, 1416, Kmperor Sigismund, after
hearing mass in the Cathedral, walked in solemn
procession to the Cordeliers and, after dinner, danced
with the ladies of Avignon, to each of whom he gave
a gold ring set with diamonds. Having passed a
memorable twenty-three days in the old papal city,
Sigismund fared forth on his way to Paris.

Yet another scene of rejoicing took place at
Avignon in the winter of 1417, in commemoration
of the election of Martin V, on November 2 i , and the
beginning of the end of the Great Schism. A crier
went forth bidding all merchants close their shops for
a week, and on December 2 another great and solemn
procession streamed through her streets from Notre
Dame des Doms to the Cordeliers, headed by the
consuls carrying banners, and to the sound of trumpets
and other musical instruments. Twice, in January
and June 141 8, did the civic authorities send im-
posing embassies to Martin \ , urging the claims of
their city as a papal residence ; but although Martin
courteously declined their ofter, he evidently regarded
Avignon as a possible city of refuge, and took measures
to repair and fortify the palace. The last reverbera-
tion of the schism was felt at Avignon when the
anti-pope, Felix V, made a futile attempt to seize the
city and his partisans were hanged at the city gates.
Avignon never saw pontiff again within her walls, and
the city, until the Great Revolution, was ruled by legates.

p 209

Avignoji

Benedict, inflexible to the last, took refuge, after
many vicissitudes, on the impregnable rock of Penascola
in Spain. The indomitable nonagenarian clung to
his sacred office with increasing tenacity and, feeling
his end near, created four cardinals on November 27,
1422 ; having bidden his little Curia elect a suc-
cessor, he died two days later. His end was hastened
by an odious attempt on the part of Domingo de
Alava of the Cathedral of Saragossa to poison him in
October 141 8, at the instigation of Martin V's car-
dinal legate. Allured by 20,000 florins blood-money
and the promise of the archdeaconate of Daro9a,
Domingo, having secured some arsenic from a Bene-
dictine monk, succeeded in mixing it with the sweets
which Benedict ate at dessert ; the intended victim,
narrowly escaping death, recovered after ten days'
suffering.^

1 See Quellen und Forschungen, Vol. XII. pp. 603-613, " Die
Giftmischer an der Kurie, " for the remarkable details of this
dastardly outrage.

i\q

CHAPTER XIV

BUILDING OK THE (JREAT PALACE ART ANIl LUXURY AT

PAPAL AVIGNON

Iv will now be convenient briefly to trace the
growth of that remarkable edifice, at once a castle
and a cloister, a palace and a prison, which constitutes
the chief attraction of Avignon to-day, and which,
although defaced by time and by modern restorers,
remains in its massive grandeur a fitting memorial ot
the great line of pontiffs who have made that little city
famous in the annals of Christendom.

We have seen that Pope John XXII, having allotted
a piece of land to his nephew, Arnaud de Via, for the
erection of a new episcopal palace, was content to
modify and enlarge the old one for pontifical uses,
and that Benedict XII, with characteristic straight-
forwardness, purchased the new fabric from Arnaud's
heirs and, having handed it over to the diocesan
authorities, proceeded to transform the old building
into a stately and spacious apostolic palace for the head
of Christendom. He was moved to this purchase
after mature reflection, for it was a matter of urgent
importance that the pontiff' of the Church of Rome
should possess a palace of his own at Avignon as long
as it might be necessary for him to remain there. ^

^ The Bull dated June 5, 1336, is printed in the Bullcrin di
Vaucluie, 1881, pp. 381-383.

P 2 211

Q ^

Building of the Great Palace

The relations between Curia and Episcopate being
thus clearly defined, Benedict appointed a compatriot,
Pierre Poisson de Mircpoix, master of the works,
and, since about two-thirds of the existing palace
dates from Benedict's reign, Pierre Poisson may be
regarded as its first architect.

More, probably, is known of the construction of
the papal palace of Avignon than of any other relic
of medlasval architecture. Thanks to the researches of
Father Ehrle,^ Prefect of the Vatican Library, and
other scholars, the sums paid to the contractors, their
names, the estimates of quantities, the wages of the
chief workmen, and the price of materials, are before
us, and we can trace day by day and month by month
the progress of the great pile. The whole of the
craftsmen, with the exception of the later master
painters from Italy and some northern sculptors, were
either Avignonais, Gascons or Provenfals.

The first work undertaken by Pierre was the en-
largement of the papal chapel"-^ of John XXII. This
was cioubled in length, and the lavish decorations
executed by John's master painter, Friar Pierre Dupuy,
were continued on the walls of the added portion :
payments for white, green, indigo, vermdion,
carmine and other pigments, and for coloured tiles,
testify to the brilliancy of its interior. On June 23,
1336, the enlarged chapel satis spatiosam ct speciosam
was dedicated by the Archbishop of Aries to SS. Peter
and Paul, and a month later Benedict, by a papal
bull, accorded various indulgences to those who

' Ehri.k, F. S. ). : Dc Hist. Pal. Rom. Pom. A-ven., Rome, 1890.
See also the writings of Eugene Miintz and Diihamel. For a
more detailed exposition of the authorities see Digonnet's I,e Palais
des Papa, d' Ai'i^non.

'^ See Plan 6.'

213

PLAN OF THE PAPAL PALACE, A.D. I360

Key to Plan (p. 214)

I.

2.

Tour de la Campane.
Tour de Trouillas.

3-

Tour des Latrines.

4-

Tour de St. Jean.

5-
6.

7-

Tour des Anges.

Old Papal Chapel.

Hall of Consistory and State Dining Room.

9-
10.

Reception Hall.
Cloisters.

12.

Kitchen.

15-

17-

Dining-room, Oratory, etc.
Cloister, S. side.

23-
30.

25. Cloister, upper floor.
Garde Robe.

31-

Clement VI's New Chapel and Justice Hall,

35-

Clement VI's West Entrance.

36.

Tower of the White Cardinal.

37-

Porte Notre Dame.

39-

Tour de la Cache.

40.

Tour de St. Laurent.

43-

Buttress.

59.

Notre Dame des Donis

Avignon

should visit the beautiful sanctuary. Meanwhile
work was proceeding on the massy new tower, the
Turris Magne, now known as the Tour des Anges,^
the best preserved of all the old towers. The founda-
tions were laid on April 3, 1335," and it was roofed
with lead on March 18, 1337.^ The basement
formed the papal wine-cellar ; the ground floor was
the treasury, or strong room, where the specie, the
jewels, the precious vessels of gold and silver and other
valuables were stored : many payments are recorded
for locks and bars and bolts for their safe-keeping
within the ten-feet-thick walls of the tower. The
floor above was used as the offices of the papal cham-
berlain, and a payment on the last day of June 1355
for four bedsteads and four benches for the four squires
who watched over the treasury'* proves how solicitous
the papal officials were for the integrity of this valuable
hoard. The second floor of the tower was used as
the papal bedchamber, and in the Inventory of 1379
a bed found there is described as " in the chamber
where our lord the pope sleeps."-^ Traces of the
frescoed decoration have recently been discovered.
Three noble windows, with seats in their embrasures,
afforded magnificent views over the papal gardens, the
city and the lovely valley of the Rhone. The third
floor was occupied by the papal library with its
precious illuminated manuscripts and other biblio-
graphical treasures, and the fourth floor, beneath the
embattlemented summit, served as a guardroom.

The next great work put in hand was the east
wing, which was raised on a space left by John's
demolished, or partially demolished, structure. On
November 20, 1337, two masons {lapiscidarios), Pierre

1 See Plan 5. '^ Ehrlk: De Hist. Pal. Pont. Rom., f. 24.

» Ehrle, p. 26. ■» Ehrle, p. 70. ^ Ehrle, p. 89.

216

Building of the Great Palace

Folcaud and Jean Chapclier, and a carpenter, Jacques
Bcyran, all of Avignon, contracted to carry out the
plans of a new architect, Bernard Canello, for the
completion of Benedict's private apartments, and on
the same day Lambert Fabre and Martin Guinaud,
housebreakers, were paid eighty-three gold florins on
account, for the demolition of the old buildings.^
This wing, since wholly remodelled by the legates
and the modern corps of engineers, comprised the
papal Garde Robe,'^ the Garde Meuble, the private
kitchen and offices and, on the floor above, the papal
dining-room, study and private oratory'^: the walls
were, of course, embattlemented, and in 1337 the
most exposed portions of the new buildings were
defended by a stout rampart. Having taken possession
of his new quarters, Benedict next turned his attention
to the north, and on )uly 26, 1338, Jean Folcaud,
Jacques Alasaud, Pierre Audibert, Pierre Chapelier
and Bernard Ganiac, of Avignon, were paid for
work on a new wing,"* which was roofed on Sep-
tember I, 1338/' The whole ground floor, iio feet
by 33, was occupied by a great reception hall *' (^camera
paramenti), where distinguished visitors were accorded
a first welcome befoi'e being admitted to a private
audience or accorded a solemn state reception In Con-
sistory, as the import of their embassy demanded.
The popes were also used to receive the cardinals there,
and two doorkeepers were appctinted who must be
faithful, virtuous and honest men and sleep in the hall :
their office, being one of great trust, was highly paid,
and they were generally laymen." It was probably in
this hall that St. Catherine was received by Clement VI.

' Ehrle, p. 27. - See Plan 30. •' See Plan 15.

•« Ehrle, p. 27, 28. '■' Ehrle, p. 28. « See Plan 9.

'' Awisamcnti pro rcgimine, Muratori III. pt. 2, p. 812.

Avignon

The Avignon conclaves were held there, for on
December 31, 1352, four hundred and fifteen days'
and nights' labour were employed in breaking down
the walls between the dining-hall and the Camera
Paramenti, clearing away the stones and making secret
chambers for the lord cardinals, in which chambers
were twenty-eight cells. ^ In the times of the legates
this fine hall served their Italian servants for practising
the favourite national game oipallone^ as its subsequent
appellation — Jeu de Ballon — implies, and no for
the English game of football, as M. Digonnet curiously
interprets. On the floor over the Camera Paramenti
were the apartments for exalted guests, such as good
king John of France, who lodged at Avignon at least
three times, and the Emperor Charles IV in 1365.
An entry (1370) for covering with linen cloth the
windows of the emperor's room,^ and an earlier
payment (October 9, 1347) for a similar covering to
the windows of the chamber of our lord the pope,"*
prove that the windows of the rooms in the palace
were unglazed. These, in common with all the
great chambers of the palace, have been wholly
transformed by the military authorities.

Work was next begun on the extension of the
east wing in the direction of the present Tour de
Trouillas^: on October 10, 1332, J. Mata, Bertrand
Galfuer and Pierre de Lunelle contracted to build the
walls of the new Consistory and towers, on the rock
towards the gardens.^' Work, as usual, was pushed

1 Ehrle, p. 66.

^ Pila majoris hisiis : thus designated by Jodocus Sincerus,
who travelled thither in the latter half of the seventeenth
century.

3 Ehrle, p. 83.

^ Ehrle : Pro intelando fenestras camere domini nostri pape, p. 6l.

3 See Plan 2. '' Ehrle, p. 28.

2l8

Building of the Great Palace

rapidly forward : on August 7, 1339, the tilers were
paid for the roofing, and on January 26, 1341,^ a final
measuring up was made of the whole construction —
the Consistory, the great state dining-hall, and the
two towers of the Consistory and of the latrines with
the barbicans, battlements, machicoulis and staircases. ^
The Hall of Consistory,^ a noble chamber about
135 feet by 12, has also been disfigured and re-
modelled by the engineers. In the early nineteenth
century, traces of the lofty sedilium consistorii, where-
on the pontiffs sat enthroned amid the cardinals
in all their majesty, were still evident. It was on
August 10, 1339, that Master Bernard, of Avignon,
mason, was paid fifteen florins of Florence for carving
the seats of this throne. Be it noted in passing that
some payments were also made to an English mason
Johanni Anglici,'* or Englici. The state dining-hall
occupied the upper floor and was of the same
dimensions as the Consistory : the tower of the
Consistory is the one familiar to visitors to the
palace as the Tour St. Jean '^ with its chapels of
St. Jean and St. Martial. At the north end of
this Consistorial wing were the great kitchen,*' the
various offices, and the Tour des Latrines^ {turris
latrinarum), of sinister fame since the Revolution
as the Tour de la Glacicre, so-called from its
proximity to the ice-cellar in the days of the
Legates. The windows of the chapel of the Con-
sistory and the state dining-room were glazed, as a
payment October 14, 1339,^ to Proys the glazier
proves. On November 10"' Jean Mathe and Jean
Calhe had built the kitchen and fitted it with a great

' Ehrle, p. ^2. 2 Ehrle, pp. 42,43. •' See Plan 7.

^ Ehrle, p. 32. ■"' See Plan 4. ^ See Plan 12.

" See Plan 3. ^^ Ehrle, pp. 33, 34. « Ehrle, p. 34.

219

Avignon

oven and a funnel-shaped chimney, which may still be
seen, and which was formerly shown by the guides to
awe-stricken visitors as the vent of the Inquisition
torture chamber. A butler's pantry, dresser and
other culinary accessories were subsequently added.
Coal was evidently in use, for in the inventory of
1369 fifty baskets of carbonc lapideo (stone coal) and
about sixty of carbone lignorum (charcoal) were found
stored in tlie palace for use in the kitchen.^ In
Januar}' 1344 Pierre Proti and Andre d'Alais con-
structed the great stone conduit which drained the
kitchen into the Sorgue, and along which the plotters
of 1398 crept : it w-as discovered and cleared in
1858 for the drainage of the barracks.

On December 28, 1338, Gugliemo Salve, Raymond
Chabaud and Martin Grivart contracted to demolish
the hospiiium near the street of the Blessed Mary, and
were to clear the ground as far as the tower next the
new chapel, for the erection of the wing between the
Tour de la Campane - and the Camera Paramenti.
No less than seven contractors, John the Englishman
among them, took part in the construction, and on
February 20, 1340, the final accounts were settled
for the wing of the new palace against the church
of Blessed Marie de Domps ■^ : the apartments served
to lodge various members of the papal household.
On September 5, 1339, John's old belfry was pulled
down and Jean Mauser de Carnot, who asserted he
had excavated 11,300 basketfuls of rubbish, was
paid at the rate of twelve deniers the hundred for the
work : evidently these were good times for basket
makers as well as builders. December 22, 1340,
three contractors, Isnard and Raymond Durand and

1 Ehrlc, p. 85. - See Plan i,

'^ Ehrle, pp. 29 and 56,

Building of the Great Palace

Jacques Gasquet, received 1,273 florins for the com-
pleted new tower, with its barbicans, battlements
and machicoulis,' which was on the site and which
retained the appellation of the Tour dc la Campanc,
or Bell Tower. The cmbattlementcd and machico-
lated summit, but not the chastelet, of lliis mighty
tower lias recently been restored : its walls are
nearly twelve feet thick. The basement, as in the
'i'our dcs Anges, was a strong room, as subsequent
payments (February 5, 13+4)'- for chests and cup-
boards for the silver vessels and scarlet of our lord the
pope, prove. The upper floors were used by digni-
taries of the Court and still show Benedict's simple
escutcheon. The topmost floor was an armoury and
guardroom, as in the other towers. As the new
wing enclosed the cloisters-^ of the old episcopal palace,
Benedict rebuilt them, but since they were irregular
in form, his architect contrived to mask the irregularity
by making the arches equal in height although varying
in span : on the south side — the smallest — he used
three instead of four arches.^ The cloisters supported
an upper floor" with two-light windows, and a door
led from the south of the chapel to the cloisters.
Relics of these cloisters and the bell-gable Benedict
erected at the south-west corner, may still be seen.
The pontifical bell, which from its silvery tone was
known as the ctoche (Vnrgent, rang for the last time
during the perpetration of the massacres in the
Glacicre.

Benedict's last undertaking was the erection of the
Tour de Trouillas,*' next the Tour des Latrines, and
on April 20, i 34 1 , sixteen rubbish baskets were bought
for the " Saracens that excavated the foundations of the

' Ehrle, pp. 40, 41. - Ehrlc, p. 54. ' See Plan lo.

■• See Plan 17. ^ See Plan 23-25. ^ Plan 2,

22 I

Avignon

turns nove} The Tour de Trouillas, tallest and
stoutest of the keeps of the mighty fortress, is 175 feet
high as compared with the 150 feet of the Tour de la
Campane, and its walls fifteen feet thick as compared
with twelve feet. It should be noted, however, that
the latter tower appears the taller owing to the
elevated ground whereon it stands. Benedict did not
live to see the completion of the tower, for it was not
until February 19, 1345, that a final measuring up ot
the work was made and accounts settled with the
masters of the Turris de Trulhacio.- On June 17,
figure payments for roofing the tower with lead,^ and
on April 18, 1347, three iron crosses were bought,
one of which was erected on its summit ; one was
raised on the hospitium of our lord the pope across
the Rhone, the third on the marshal's tower.* The
basement of the Tour de Trouillas served as a wood
store, and a terrible conflagration accounts for various
payments, June i 3, August 25, and September 30, for
repairs, including four leaded windows, a fleur-de-lys
and a cross, to the said tower lately burnt. ^ This
tower is the legendary prison of Rienzi, and on
March 27, 1353, payment is made for a lock of the
tower, in which the Tribune dwells {moratur).^ Pro-
visions were kept over the wood store, and in the central
apartments the guest-master was lodged : the upper
floor, as usual was a guardroom and armoury. The
inventory of 1369" specifies in the upper room of
the parve turris and other towers, shields, casks of
sulphur, stones, jars of oil, ox hides, cross-bows,
springales, balisters, canones de la garrote, and ninety-
six English long-bows, painted. Entries in October
1347 refer to carrying stones to the tops of towers ;

' Ehrle, p. 45. - Ehrle, p. 52, " Ehrle, p. 51.

■* Ehrle, p. 60. ^ Ehrle, p. 73.

« Ehrle, p. 67. ■ Ehrle, p. 84.

Building of the Great Pa/ace

payments for springales, balisters, lances, and for
carrying the springales to the upper chambers of a
tower. ^

Clement VI appointed a new master of the works,
Jean de Loubieres, whom we find in October I 342 -
employed in minor works on the palace — a door to
the pope's private chapel ; a door in the chamber
next the tower near the Blessed Mary. April 26,
I 344, he figures as Magister Johannes de Lupera and
is paid for carving four apes of stone in human form
to be placed at his cost over the portal of the palace
and for their carriage over the Rhone'' : they served
as gargoyles. On December 4, 1342, work was in
progress on the tower of the Garde Robe of our lord
the pope next the great tower (Tour des Anges)
where our lord the pope sleeps ; and since Master
Christian the glazier was paid on August i 2, 1 345, for
putting in three ciouble windows in the new chapel
built over the Garde Robe,' it is clear that the tower
was then approaching completion. This private
chapel, on which Clement lavished all the artistic
decoration he could command — carvings and frescoed
walls — was dedicated to St. Michael. Having bought,
by private agreement or by arbitration, all the houses
adjacent to the palace on the south side, Clement next
proceeded to demolish them and on the site to raise
the noblest and most beautiful wing of the great
palace. This edifice, vnlde mystcriosuni,-' and known to
contemporaries as the great new palace, comprised a
spacious Chapel and Hall of Justice ; and on August
9, 1344, contracts were made for cutting away and
levelling the rock above the present Rue Peyrolerie,
whereon, by October 21, 1351, the masons had
raised their beautiful building."

' Ehrle, p. 61. - Ehrle, p. 48. ■■ Ehrlc, p. 50.

"• Ehrle, p. 54. •"' Baluze, I. 277-8. '' See Plan 31.

223

Avignon

On that day, by order of our lord the pope, one
hundred florins were handed over by the papal
chamber to Master John of Loubieres to distribute
among the masters to celebrate the placing of the
keystone in the vaulting of the new chapel of the
palace and the completion of the said chapel ' : on
All Saints' Day of that same year Clement recited (a
month before his death) the first solemn mass in his
great new chapel and preached a most eloquent
sermon, praising God for the completion of his life's
work.- The lower hall, most famous of judicial
chambers in Christendom and final Court of Appeal
in all questions of international and ecclesiastical law,
was later in opening, for it was only on February 19,
1352, that Master John of Loubieres received twenty-
three florins for the bench in horse-shoe form, on
which sat the Auditeurs de la Rotc^ as the judges of
Appeal were designated, from the Rota, or revolving
bookcase and desk, that stood before them for con-
venient reference to legal authorities. On April 7
of the same year Guillaume \"iaud and two other
carpenters were paid for erecting a chancel before the
august tribunal and for upholstering the judges'
seats : other payments were made for locks, windows,
benches, stools, an altar,'* etc. The last portion of the
new wing to be completed was the terrace on the
roof, since on December 24. and 29, 1354, forty-six
florins were disbursed for " the steps by which one
ascends to the terrace of the great chapel," and for
battlements : at the same time contract was made for
cutting, polishing and carving a stone altar for the
great new chapel and placing it safe and whole in
position at the contractor's risk.^

' Ehrle, p. 65. '- Baluze, I. 278. ^ Ehrle, p. 65,

* Ehrle, p. 65. ' Ehrle, p. 69.

224

ST. SlfFRKIN

[ To /ace p. 224.

Building of the Great Palace

While the law courts and chapel were under
construction John of Loubieres was also erecting a
new west wing^ (the present fa9ade of the palace),
and on August 3, 1351, the various chambers which
composed it — the new offices of the papal exchequer,
of the cubicularius, etc. — were being prepared for
occupation : a picturesque narrow vaulted gallery
which gave easy access to these important chambers
is shown to visitors, and wrongly described as the
" Gallery of the Conclave." The battlements were
unfinished at Clement's death, and it was not until
April 30, 1357,^ that a final settlement was made
with the contractors for the whole work, in-
cluding the two decorated turrets, with their steeple-
like roofs which flanked the new entrance,^ and which
were only destroyed in 1770, leaving their bases as
we see them to-day. In Benedict's time the palace
was bounded on the west by a stout rampart, similar
to that on the south, and the main entrance, for
which Master John carved the ape-like gargoyles, was
at the north-west corner ^ : part of this portal, walled
up, may still be seen at the top of the modern steps
which lead to the cathedral. The gate was fortified
and defended by a turret-^ (the turret of the White
Cardinal), where guards held watch day and night.
Called in Benedict's time the Great Portal, it sub-
sequently became known as the Porte Notre Dame
when Clement's new entrance had been completed.
In 1346 payment is made for a portcullis for the
Great Portal.*'

Clement's new portal was also furnished with a port-

' See Plan 54. - Ehrle, p. 72. •* See Plan 35.

■• See Plan 37. ^ See Plan 36.

* Pro factura porte colatissie in magna porta per quam itur ad

eccletiam beatc Marie de Damps. Ehrle, p. 58.

Avigtion

cullis and approached by a rampe, not by stairs as in
modern times. Each end of the new west wing was
buttressed by a tower, that at the north involving the
reconstruction of Benedict's turret,which now defended
the approaches to both portals : the south tower ^

ENTRANCE TO THE PAPAL PALACE, AVIGNON

adjacent to the new south wing is referred to in the
accounts as the great tower of the new palace, or as
the Tunis Gragie {Cache, a watchtower) : on June 30,
1370, a stonemason of Villeneuve was paid for renew-
ing the battlements of the Turris Gragie, which had
been destroyed by the wind.- Payments were made
1 See Plan 39. " Ehrle, p. 79.

226

Building of the Great Palace

for digging its foundations on May 1 8, 1346, and
six years later the minor Court of Appeal, Audicnt'ia
Contradktorum, was installed on the lower floor ; and
on May 4, i 352, Guillaume Viaud was paid for making
the bench on which the dominie auditor sat.^ The
upper floors lodged part of the army of papal officials,
the topmost chamber being, as usual, a guard-room
and armoury.

On April 6, 1353, Innocent VI employed John
of Loubicres to finish the Tour de la Gache, and
to erect yet another tower.^ This, the last of the
great work of construction, was probably, apart from
military reasons, necessitated by the lie of the rocky
foundation on which John's graceful and daring edifice
stood. Indeed, as we shall soon learn, this part of
the palace was not long in showing signs of weakness.
The new tower,^ now known as the Tour de St.
Laurent, is styled Turres revest'iarn, or Vestry Tower,-*
in the accounts, and Innocent evidently intended to
block up the narrow lane which skirted the palace
by his new tower and open another entrance to the
palace there. But the citizens complained, the doorway
was blocked up, and a new way cut round the base
of the tower. The great papal architect died before
the completion of the work, since the first payment
of 100 florins, January 26, 1358, was on account of
work done by Bertrand Chapclier himself and by
John of Lou bi ires, quondam magister edificiorum palatii ^
— all honour to the memory of Master John. The
tower of St. Lawrence, with its fine buttresses, is well
preserved, and has a most imposing aspect as seen
from the Rue Peyrolerie. Interesting items in the
accounts (May 10 and June 28, 1354) r^^cr to pay-

' Ehrle, p. 65. - Ehrle, p. 67. •' See Plan 40.

■* Ehrle, pp. 73, 74. ^ Ehrle, p. 68.

Q 2 227

BUTTRESS IN THE RUE DE LA PEYROLERIE

Building of the Great Palace

ments for breaking away the rock of the Place du
Palais (the space before the west wing), that folk
coming for indulgences during Holy Week may collect
there without danger, and for making a certain pulpit
cadafalco in the Place for the preaching of a sermon,
and for condemning the doings of the heretics.^ The
cutting of the Rue Peyrolerie round the base of the
vestry tower, and the inherent lightness of the south
wing soon gave cause for anxiety, and on November 20,
1357, Pierre Geoffrey and Pierre Foucaud, masons,
contracted to make a way between the new chapel
and the marshal's palace, and to erect a buttress- out-
side the chapel at the middle ^ : next year further
sums were allotted pro faciendo . . . unum Ptllare s'lve
anchoam.

Among the amenities of the old palace were the
spacious and lovely gardens on the east, with their
clipped hedges, avenues of trees, fiower-beds and
covered and frescoed walls, all kept fresh and green by
channels of water. John XXII maintained a mena-
gerie of lions and other wild and strange beasts ;
stately peacocks swept proudly along the green swards,
for the inventory of i 369 specifies seventeen peacocks,
some old and some young, whereof six are white.*

Urban V is credited by his biographer with having
added a new quarter to the papal palace, commonly
known as Roma, wherein were chambers, dwellings,
covered areas and gardens of wondrous beauty ; the
buildings being more pleasant than any other part of
the existing edifice.^ The whole of this palace of
delight has vanished, and the marvellous fabric as we
know it to-day is almost entirely ciue to the great
building popes, Benedict XII and Clement \T.

' Ehrle, p. 68. - See Plan 43. '•' Ehile, p. 73.

■* Ehrle, p. 86. ^ Baluze, Vol. 1. p. 392.

229

Avignon

But we have as yet dealt chiefly with the external shell
of this mass of architecture which, tall and mighty,
raises its once impregnable walls and towers against
the sky. The beauty of its interior remains briefly to be
touched upon, for the fortress palace had, as Clement
left it, some analogy with the great Moorish palace of
the Alhambra in that it stood outwardly grim and
strong, while within it was a shrine of exquisite and
luxurious art.

In 1335 ^ certain cardinal, passing through Siena
on his return to Avignon, saw Simone Memmi, of
that city, working on a fresco of the Madonna and
Saints at the Porta Camolia : he was struck by its
beauty, and invited the artist to come to Avignon.
There Simone met the amorosissimo poeta Francesco
Petrarca, and having painted a portrait of the fair
Laura which satisfied her ardent lover, was paid by
two sonnets, " which brought more fame to the poor
life of Master Simone than all his works have brought
him or will bring." ^ The date of the painter's
arrival at Avignon is uncertain, but Simone was
settled at the papal city in 1338, with his wife and
brother Donato, and concerned in a lawsuit at the
Audientia on behalf of the Dominican friars of his
native city ; and according to the register of deaths at
the church of St. Domenico at Siena (August 4, I 344),
Master Simone, painter, had recently died at Avignon.
Memmi, during the Avignon period, worked on the
porch of Notre Dame des Doms, and painted for
the Avignon churches many altar-pieces, now either
lost or scattered about Europe ; but, so far as the
papal accounts show, never in the great palace. The

^ Vasari : Vita di Simone c Lippo Memmi, Sonnets Ivii., Iviii.
The much-discussed portrait was painted on parchment : la
ritrasse in carta, Ivii, 1. 7.

230

Art and Luxury at Papal Avignon

austere Benedict, who, his biographer tells us, left the
walls of the Consistory naked, appears to have ex-
pended little on the pictorial decoration of the halls
and chambers erected during his pontificate ; but
with the elevation of the luxurious and art-loving
Clement VI a new spirit breathes over the fabric ;
the stern simplicity and noble strength of his pre-
decessor's work assume an internal vesture of richness
and beauty : the walls glow with azure and gold ; a
legion of Gallic sculptors and Italian painters lavish
their art on the embellishment of the palace.

On September 22, 1343, the papal chamber pur-
chased twenty pounds of azure for Master Matheum
Johaneti de Viterbo in Tbernia'^ ; for the painting
of the Garde Robe of our lord the pope. On
February 4, 1344, Simonet of Lyons, Bisson of
Chalons and Jean Moys, were paid at the rate of four
soldi the square cannx- for painting certain wall spaces,
and on the same day Robin of Romans received twenty-
two florins for painting that part of the chamber of our
lord the pope which had been broken down for the Con-
clave.^ The accounts, in accord with mediaeval custom,
know no degrees in the denomination of craftsmen ;
a painter is a painter whether he create a frescoed
image of the Blessed V'irgin in all her divine beauty
or paint a doorpost. It is, therefore, only by the
amount paid for covering a given space that the kind
of work may generally be inferred. On February 9
Bernard Escot and Pierre de Castro received eighty
florins for painting one of the pope's chambers ■* ; and
on March 29 sums were paid for painting the new

^ Ehrle, p. 49. There must surely be a misreading here.

- Ehrle, p. 49. About two yards : a canna = 8 pam of 9
inches.

•* Ehrle, p. 49. ^ Ehrle, p. 49.

Avignon

chapel and erecting a staging for the painters in the
small chamber of our lord near the entrance to the
camera paramenti \^ on April 26 Masters N. of
Florence and Ricconi of Arezzo received for them-
selves and their mates 200 florins for painting the
big chamber contiguous to our lord the pope's small
dining-room;- on May 18 Master Giovanni Luca of
Siena received fifty florins for painting done by him
on a wall of the great chapel,^ and on August 25
the chamber purchased from Vivello Salvi, mer-
chant of Avignon, fifty foils of fine gold for Master
Matteo Giovanetti for his work on the new chapel
of our lord the pope ; "* on September 6 Ricconi
of Arezzo and Pietro di Viterbo, painters, had
decorated the ceiling of the Garde Robe with azure
and stars, and on November 1 2 the apostolic
chamber delivered to Matteo Giovanetti di Viterbo
sixteen pounds of fine azure ^ for use in painting the
room now known as the chapel of St. Martial. In
1345 payments came thick and fast for precious
materials for the painters : on February 1 1 the
chamber bought 100 foils of fine gold ; on April 12,
fifty more foils of the same ; on July 8, sixty-two
foils of gilded tinfoil for the stars of the ceiling ;
on August 27, thirty-three foils of fine burnished
gold ibruniti) and 500 pieces of silver for Master
Matteo. On October 6 cloth of gold was bought to
place behind our lord the pope's chair in the small
dining-room ; on November 21 a settlement to date
was made with Matteo Giovanetti, who took i 1 9
florins for painting the walls of the great dining hall
and other work.*^

On January 3, 1346, Master Matteo estimated

1 Ehrle, p. 50. ^ Ehrle, p. 50. ^ Ehrle, p. 50.

•» Ehrle, p. 51. ^ Ehrle, p. 51. ^ Ehrle, pp. 51-55-

232

Art and Luxury at Papal Avignon

his expenses for painting the chapels of St. Michael
and St. Martial. For the former chapel, at the top of
the tower of the Garde Robe of our lord the pope,
to wit, from January 19, 1344, to September 25,
1345, 504 days according to divers rates of wages, as
stated in his private account book, were settled for.
But since the frescoes of the latter sanctuary have
survived it will be of interest to give with more
detail Matteo's account of work done there. The
painters were at work on the chapel of St. Martial
for 640 days at varying rates of wages. This
Matteo estimated at a total of 89 livres, 10 sous,
7 deniers. Matteo also estimated his out-of-pocket
expenses for certain colours in addition to those
supplied to him by the papal chamber, and for
solvents for the said colours, to wit : oil, varnish,
eggs, size and gum ; for vessels to hold the colours ;
for brushes, crayons, green and white tin ; for twenty
pieces of gold ; for nails and for grinding the tools
and other petty things — the whole at 1 3 livres,
I 5 sous, 8 deniers : the total sum for the painting
of the said chapel of St. Martial amounted to
103 livres, 6 sous, 3 deniers. Matteo computed
his own work in painting the said chapels from
January 19, 1344, to September I, 1345, inclusive,
at 425 days, and for this there was due to him
170 lire piccoli, being at the rate of eight soldi the
day. This was equivalent to 141 florins, 16 soldi,
at the rate of 23 soldi to the florin. The whole
cost of painting the said two chapels amounted to
293 florins, i 2 soldi. ^

' Ehrle, pp. 51;, 56. The expenses for painting the chapels
would, therefore, be eijuivalent to over ^1000 in modern money
without reckoning the cost of the more valuable materials
supplied by the chamber, Matteo appears to have taken
about 25;. a day.

233

Avignon

Matteo, therefore, appears to have been the
general contractor and master of the staff of painters,
and on February 3 and April 3, 1346, he asserted
that he and his men had covered 178 square canna
with painting in the great dining-hall and other
parts of the apostolic palace.^ On April 5 the
accounts are more specific as to subject, for Master
Giovanetti, we learn, had painted over the door of
the chapel - in the palace an image of the Blessed
Mary with her Son ; and the master and his men
were paid their salaries for this work executed from
November 19 to April 4, and for divers coloribus
gfossis, such as azure and gold, Matteo had bought.
Many foils of gold and 200 foils of silver were used
in painting the said image of the Blessed Virgin. ^
On April 18, 1347, Master Matteo was paid for
paintings on the side of the Consistory, where are
the Coronation and the four popes, and for painting
an altar-piece on wood for the chapel of the said
palace and for purchases of colours. In 1348 are
many entries of wages paid, and azure delivered, to
Matteo for painting the Consistory. Matteo also
worked for Clement's old monastery and prospective
burial-place at Chaise-Dieu, for in 1350 he was paid
at Avignon 254 florins, 20 soldi, 2 danari for eight
pictures to be sent thither.'* In January 1355
Lo Rey, a painter of Avignon, is painting rooms in
the treasury, and on December 29 of the same year
Guglielmo Ribaudini was paid for painting the door
and repairing the pictures in the small room where
our lord the pope eats.^ Andreas Belvacensis, illu-

1 Ehrle, p. 56. 2 gj. Martial. » Ehrle, p. 57.

■* EuGKNE MuNTz : U Argent et le Luxe a la cour pontif,
d' Avignon. Re-v. Quest. Hist, Tom. Ixvi. 5, 44 and 378-406.
* Ehrle, p. 70.

Art and Luxury at Papal Avignon

minator of manuscripts, received three deniers for each
gilded letter and three sous per loo for floral letters.
In 1347 one florin each was paid for ten large initial
letters of a Mass-book, and 937 small letters in minium
and gold were settled for at six sous the 100. A Bible
cost the chamber 60 florins, two volumes of Decretals
45 florins.

Such, in brief outline, was the progress of the
mighty fabric and its internal decoration which the
great popes of Avignon raised to be their dwelling-
place, their fortress, and the ecclesiastical centre of
Christendom. Though shorn of all its pristine
beauty and robbed of much of its symmetry, it stands
to-day in bulk and majesty much as it stood at the end
of Clement VI's reign, when a contemporary writer
describes it as a quadrangular edifice, enclosed within
high walls and towers and constructed in most noble
{sokmnid) style, and though it was all most beautiful
to look upon, there were three parts of transcendent
beauty : the Audientia, the Capella major, and the
terraces; and these were so admirably planned and
contrived that peradventure no palace comparable to
it was to be found in the whole world. ^ The terraces
referred to were those raised over the great chapel,
and were formed of stone, bedded in asphalte and
laid on a staging of stout oak joists: the view from the
terraces was unparalleled for range and beauty.

The glowing splendour of frescoed walls was
enhanced by gorgeous hangings and tapestries and
by the magnificent robes and jewels of popes and
cardinals. Crowds of goldsmiths — forty were employed
at the papal court — embroiderers and silk mercers,
made Avignon famous throughout Europe. In 1337,
3 1 8 florins were paid for eight Paris carpets; in i 343,
1 Baluze, Vol. I. p. 261.

Avignon

Clement VI paid 213 florins for green silk hangings,
and 254 florins for carpets adorned with roses ; in
1348, 400 gold and silver vessels turned the scales at
862 marks, 5 ounces; in the inventory of 1369,
despite the fact that the most precious had been sent
to Rome, the gold vessels were weighed out at 1434
marks,^ i ounce; the silver at 5525 marks, 7 ounces,
A cardinal's hat cost from 15 to 40 florins, and in
1348, 150 florins were paid for one piece of scarlet
for the pope, and 75 to 100 florins for the garniture
of a riding cloak. Clement VI spent 1278 florins
in the purchase of cloth of gold, woven by the
Saracens of Damascus; one payment to Jacopo Mala-
bayla of Asti for summer and winter clothing for the
papal householdamounted to 65 10 florins,and the same
obviously Hebrew merchant received 10,652 florins
in 1341 for cloth and ermine and beaver ; in 1347
Clement's furrier received 1080 ermine skins, whereof
430 were used in one cloak, 310 for a mantle, 150
for two hoods, and 88 for nine birettas; in 1351,
2258 florins went to Tuscany for silk, and 385 for
brocade to Venice.^ The richness of the papal
utensils beggars description : jewelled cups, flagons
of gold, knife handles of jasper and ivory, forks
of mother-of-pearl and gold — a goldsmith in 1382
was paid 14 florins for repairing two of the last-
named implements. The ^abelli, or processional

^ The French mark was equivalent to 244*75 grammes.

^ Many precious objects came from the application of the
Jus Spolii, or appropriation by the popes, of a large part of the
property of a deceased bishop. Between 1343 and 1350 no less
than 1200 volumes of valuable MSS. found their way to the papal
library, and in 1373 six beautiful tapestries were appropriated.
Many gifts from these sources were made to relations and royal
personages. — Samaran and Mollat, La Fisca/iee pont. au XV,
p. 106.

236

Art and Luxury at Papal Avignon

feather fans, cost 14 florins; Benedict XIII paid 300
florins for an enamelled silver bit ; the Golden Roses
cost from 100 to 300 florins. Presents of jewels
were costly and frequent. Gregory XI gave t68
pearls, value 179 francs,^ to the citizens of Avellino ;
Clement VII presented the Duke of Burgundy with
a ring of gold, worth 335 florins; an aigidhe of gold
and pearls, valued at 1000 florins, and two tables
each over 200 florins: richer gifts were lavished on
sovereign princes. Reliquaries were of prodigious
value: the gold cross containing a piece of the true
Cross, at the Celestins weighed fifteen pounds ; in
1375 ^ silver arm for the image of St. Andrew
cost over 2566 florins.'-'

The cardinals were equally munificent. The most
striking example of lavish splendour is afforded by
the State banquet given to Clement V by the Cardinals
Arnaud de Palegrue and Pierre Taillefer in May
1308: Clement, as he descended from his litter, was
received by his hosts and twenty chaplains, who con-
ducted him to a chamber hung with richest tapestries
from floor to ceiling ; he trod on velvet carpet ot
triple pile ; his state-bed was draped with fine
crimson velvet, lined with white ermine ; the sheets
of silk were embroidered with silver and gold. The
table was served by four papal knights and twelve
squires, who each received silver girdles and purses
filled with gold from the hosts: fifty cardinals' squires
assisted them in serving the banquet, which consisted of
nine courses of three plates each — twenty-seven dishes
in all. The meats were built up in fantastic form :
castles, gigantic stags, boars, horses, &c. After the fourth

^ The gold franc was worth considerably more than a florin.
See p. 188.

^ Eugene Muntz: U Argent et It Luxe, etc.

Avignon

service, the cardinals oftered his holiness a milk-white
steed worth 400 florins ; two gold rings, jewelled with
an enormous sapphire and a no less enormous topaz ;
and a bowl, worth 100 florins: sixteen cardinal guests
and twenty prelates were given rings and jewels, and
twelve young clerks of the papal house and twenty-
four serjeants-at-arms received purses filled with
florins. After the fifth service, a great tower with a
fount whence gushed forth five sorts of choicest wines
was carried in : and a tourney was run during the
interval between the seventh and eighth courses. Then
followed a concert of sweetest music, and dessert was
furnished by two trees — one of silver, bearing rarest
fruits of all kinds, and the other loaded with sugared
fruits of many colours. Various wines were then served,
whereupon the master cooks, with thirty assistants,
executed dances before the guests. Clement, by this
time, having had enough, retired to his chamber,
where, lest he might faint for lack of refreshment
during the night, wine and spices were brought to
him : the entertainment ended with dances and dis-
tractions of many kinds. ^

There is no reason to believe that the Avignon
popes, either in their household expenditure or in
their personal luxury, were more extravagant than
their Roman predecessors or successors. It was the
Italian w'ars, the falling oft' of the Italian revenues,
and the exhaustion of France by the English wars,
leading to the merciless application of financial
extortion all over Christendom, that laid the train
which exploded in the Reformation. So driven for
money was Clement VII that he forced his collectors
to anticipate their payments under pain of excom-
munication, and authorized them to pledge the

^ £. MiJNTz : L' Argent et le Luxe, etc., pp. 403, 404.
238

Art and Luxury at Papal Avignon

future fiscal revenues, or their own possessions, to
raise ready money; and since the reputation of being
a good collector was the shortest cut to a prelacy, the
temptation to rapacity was overwhelming.^

Yet amid all this luxury, strange defects of comfort
appear to the modern sense. Windows, as we have
seen, were generally covered with waxeci cloth or linen;
carpets were rare, and rushes were strewn on the
floors of most of the rooms : from May to November
1349 I'^ore than 300 loads of rushes were supplied
for use in the dining-rooms and chambers of the
apostolic palace. Subsequently mats were introduced,
and in 1352 Pierre de Glotos, mat-maker to the
palace of our lord the pope, was paid for 275
cannie of matting for the palace of Avignon and for
the palace beyond the Rhone at eleven soldi the
canna : payments for matting are also found for
the new chapel and for the rooms wherein our lord
the pope lies.-

^ Samaran and Mollat, pp. 66, 120, 121.
2 Ehrle, Addenda.

239

CHAPTER XV

LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL CITY LAW AND JUSTICE AT

AVIGNON THE JEWS

But what of the little folk of Avignon — the
merchant, the shopkeeper, the craftsman, the day
drudge ? They, amid the great achievements of
the mediaeval craftsmen in the arts of ecclesiastic,
civic and domestic life, dwelt among scenes of revolt-
ing squalor. There was no public lighting or paving
of the streets ; open sewers ran down them ; pigs,
geese, fowls and other animals fed on the garbage
and dungheaps that lay on the public ways ; slops
and dead animals were flung into the streets, which
were fouled by nameless filth. At nightfall, after the
curfew had rung from the Cathedral of Avignon or
from St. Pierre, and the Pope's trumpeter had blown
his blast, no citizen could leave his house unless he
carried a lantern, and no stranger durst be seen in
the streets at all unless accompanied by a citizen with
a lantern ; ^ fires and chimneys were rare, and as late
as the seventeenth century it was found necessary to
pass a law that every house should have at least one
chimney.^ Human life was held cheap and punish-

* M. A. R. DE Maulde : Anciens Textes, Coutumes et Riglements
de la Ripiiblique d'' Avignon. Paris, 1879. An invaluable
authority for the communal government of the thirteenth
century.

2 Statutes de la faille d'A-vignon, 1698.

24.0

Life in a Mediceval City

ments were of appalling ferocity. The Cour Tempor-
elle, or secular court of Avignon, had, at the purchase
of the city by Clement VI, assumed the duties of the
court instituted by the Convention of Beaucaire,^
which court was composed of a viguier and two
judges. This tribunal became the Curia Regis when
the countship of Provence was united with the realms
of the Two Sicilies and, after the maledctta venditio,
was known as the Curia temporalis domini pape : it held
its sittings near the church of St. Pierre, and was
subsequently designated the Cour de St. Pierre.

The viguier, or chief magistrate, formerly ap-
pointed by the counts of Provence, was nominated
by the popes, and after the schism, by the cardinal
legate. Justice was not venal, and the judges were
paid a fixed salary ; they were ordered to avoid all
suspicion of partiality and to refuse presents. The
court, only when presided over by the viguier, could
pronounce sentence of death ; judgment and sentences
were to be delivered within a month after the con-
clusion of pleadings lest suits should become im-
mortal. Unlimited right of appeal was granted in
civil cases to a special commission ad hoc of learned
and notable citizens of Avignon ; in criminal matters,
to the viguier, who probably instituted a commission,
although this is not specifically stated in the con-
stitution of the court.- Within three days the
public prosecutor must lay before the court a state-
ment of the charges against any prisoner. The civil
police consisted of a sous-viguier with ten com-
pagnons or personal guards, chosen by himself, and
thirty-two sergents appointed by the viguier, and

^ See p. 41.

" La Cour Temporellc d' A'vignon, J. Girard and P. Pansier.
ntccs ] ustificati'ves, XVI,

R 241

Avignon

commanded by a captain. The police duties of the
sous-viguier covered attendance at the court, the
supervision of the markets, especially the butchers' and
fishmongers' quarters. The guards watched over the
public morals, and when the curfew tolled had their
regular stations in the city. The sergeants, armed
cap-a-pie and with sword and buckler, were re-
sponsible for public order ; for the arrest of criminals
and ordinary police duties. The jailer was charged
to keep order in the prison, and was authorized to
receive twelve denari for a first day's incarceration ;
six denari bed money for the first night's lodging, and
three for each subsequent night. Prisoners paid for
their food, but they might have meals sent from the
outside, as well as their beds, in which case nothing
was due to the jailer : he was also expressly ordered
not to urge the prisoners to purchase provisions of him,
but to facilitate in every way the distribution of the
food which was provided for poor prisoners by pious
and charitable guilds. Immediately after the reception
of a prisoner the jailer was to advise the court and
the relatives of the accused.^ Alongside the prisoners'
cells the executioner was lodged, who was paid by
the piece, as may be seen from the statement of
moneys due to Guillaume Brinhon, executeur des
hautes-oeuvres of the secular court. During the eight
months between June ii, 1328, and February 5,
1329, sixty-one criminals were delivered for punish-
ment to this carn'ificem sanguinis, the greater number
to be whipped for simple theft ; among other more
serious fustigac'iones seu cxeciisiones, the following are
characteristic —

To whipping and cutting off the hand of Jean de
Astraca for many evil deeds, 5 soldi, 6 danari,

^ GiRARD and Pansier: Pieces Juuificati-ves, XVI,
2^2

Law and Justice at Avignon

To whipping and cutting oft' the car of Pierre dc
Rostand for many evil deeds, 2 soldi 5 danari.

To whipping and cutting oft' the ears of G.
Castellani of Noycs for stealing a capon, 7 soldi 6
danari.

To burning Jean dc St. Jean, heretic, 20 soldi ;
tongue cut out, 5 soldi ; a board whereon to drag
him to execution, 2 soldi 6 danari ; rope for binding,
6 soldi ; coal and pincers, 4 soldi — the tongue was
evidently torn out with red-hot pincers.

To cutting out the tongue of G. of Avignon for
swearing by the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
5 soldi.

To cutting off foot anci hand and burning Bertrand

Alboyn (oft'ence not given) ; for the board on whicli he

was dragged, iron chain and rope, i libra 14 soldi.

To whipping and cutting out tongue of Etienne

de Baux for having two wives, 5 soldi.

To whipping and cutting out tongue of Berengaria,
wife of Jean Serrurier, for swearing against the Virgin
Mary, 5 soldi.

To hanging Raymond Berenger for many evil
deeds {quia feccrat multa maid), 20 soldi ; anti for the
rope, 8 danari.

To drowning Pierre Bernard, thief and manslayer,
20 soldi ; for a sack wherein the said Pierre was
placed, 5 soldi ; item, for the rope, 4 danari. ^

Torture was evidently used to extract confessions,
as appears from an entry in the inventory of the con-
tents of the royal palace at the appointment of a new
Clavarius, March 6, 1347: item, a stone with an
iron ring at which malefactors arc put to torture.-
The court also employed a herald, or public crier,

' GiRARD and Pansier : Picca Justificati'ves, X.
" GiRARD and Pansier : Pihes Justificati'ves, XI.

R 2 243

Avignon

whose duty it was to publish the ordinances of the
Tribunal about the city.

If life and property were not safe, and food pure
and good and cheap, or public morals well looked
after in Avignon, it was not for lack of laws. Un-
happily, but fragmentary rescripts of the fourteenth
century precon'uationes have come down to us, but a
copy of the cries published in 1458 and recently
printed, and further redactions in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, enable us to reconstruct some
traits of communal government in papal times.
Those of 1458 consist of no less than two hundred
and thirty-seven articles, and are described as the
general cries wont to be made by the cour
temporelle of the present city of Avignon : ^ they
are obviously a redaction of earlier enactments,
since the cry is sometimes given twice ; - some
are indicted in Latin, others in provenfal, and
the articles in many cases repeat the statutes of
1243, printed by Maulde. Promulgated by a papal
government, they naturally begin with penalties against
the denial of God, or of the Virgin Mary, or
blaspheming against these or God's saints, or profane
swearing at play or in taverns or the public streets ; a
fine of fifty livres is imposed, and if the money cannot
be paid the culprit is to be whipped until the blood
comes without any mercy whatever ; any person who
hears such blasphemy is to give information within a
day or be fined one hundred sous. Shops are to be
closed on Sundays and feast days under penalty of fine
and confiscation. By the statute of 1243 any person

^ GiRARD and Pansier : Piices Jusificati-ves, XXIX Generahs
preconisationes fieri solite per curiam temporalem Ci-vitatis presentis
ai'eneoncnsis,

^ i.e. 1J2 3nd 183 (/^ mundando carrieres.

244

Law and Justice at Avignon

above fourteen years of age who blasphemed God or
the Virgin Mary, was fined five soldi ; or the saints,
three soldi ; and if he could not or would not pay,
he was to be flung dressed into the deepest part of the
fosse and left there so long as he blasphemed, care
being taken lest he drown. Stringent regulations
against bearing arms or being in the streets after dark
without a lantern, and a long series of enactments,
dealing with gambling-dens, taverns, the Sisters of
Rahab, and other social evils, follow. Regulations as
to the price, quality, weights and measures of goods
sold by merchants and shopkeepers literally rain on
the devoted heads of that unhappy or deceitful class,
among whom fishmongers and butchers appear to
have given the greatest trouble. There appears to
have been something peculiarly demoralizing in the
sale of fish ; the vendors of which would conceal
their wares, or sell outside the gates, or place fresh
fish on the top of the basket and foul below. The
Master of Victuals appears to have had a difficult
task in inspecting and fixing the prices of fish and
meat and other perishable goods, and many and
various tricks of trade are exposed by the cries.
The fish-fags are warned not to insult the in-
spectors by profane epithets, nor mock at them
with their neighbours, or they will suffer the
penalties inflicted on those who insult the officers of
our lord the pope. Fish was private property only
if caught in a pond or fosse dug by the hand of
man. Detailed regulations relating to honest crafts-
manship, in the statutes of 1243, constitute veritable
treatises on media;val methods of manufacture ; even
the minimum cost of nails to be used by shoemakers
is prescribed. Tips or presents to buyers are for-
bidden and the prescribed price is to be paid and no

245

Avignon

more. Every Saturday the householder is to cleanse
the space in front of his house, of garbage, and cast it
into the Rhone ; he must place a light in his window
by night in such wise as to give light to any person
going or coming along the street. In case of con-
flagration every citizen knew his post, and admirable
regulations refer to the prevention and extinguishing
of fires.

The Jews are a source of much legislation. They
were forbidden to keep their shops open on Sundays
and Feast days ; to lend on pledges of a sacred or
sacerdotal character ; to deal in clothing in such a
way as to compete unfairly with Christians ; they
must allow Christians to circulate freely in the Jewry,
and not pluck them by the sleeve in order to draw
them into their shops ; together with harlots they
must wear a distinguishing dress. No Jew or Jewess
shall make an actual or verbal row, or strife, within
the Jewry, nor may they arrange marriages between
Christians. If any harlot, or Jew, or Jewess, touch
any article of food exposed for sale, he or she must
buy it. On the other hand, Christians were forbidden
to cast stones at Jews or filth at their houses, or to
insult converted and baptized Jews by calling them
circumcised, dog, sow, cur, runagate, or son of a dog.
Jew or Jewess must not leave the Jewry between
Holy Wednesday and Easter Tuesday inclusive ; nor
be seen working on Feast days and Sundays, and
when the Holy Sacrament was carried along the
streets no Jew shall allow himself to be seen, but
must retire and conceal himself.

Nowhere in Christendom were the Jews so well
treated as in Avignon, and the Ju if s avignonnais formed
one of the most ancient and most famous of Hebrew
communities : two hundred heads of Jewish families

246

The Jews

took the civic oath sworn in 1358 to Innocent VI.
Owing to papal protection, the county Venaissin was
dotted with synagogues, and under the tolerant rule
of the popes Avignon became the promised land of
the children of Abraham. They were, of course,
unpopular. Debarred from owning land, or dealing
in corn, and hedged about in trade with hostile and
jealous laws, they turned their subtle wits to the most
unpopular of professions : they farmed the taxes, the
seignorial ciues, even the revenues of the apostolic
chamber ; they were not forbidden by the Mosaic
law to lend money on interest to Gentiles, and they
availed themselves of that privilege to the utmost ;
and since the result of enactments against usury is
to raise the rate of interest, it proved to be a most
lucrative profession. They did not attempt to com-
pete with the great Florentine bankers, but dealt
in small loans; Jew and usurer were synonymous.
They were matrimonial agents, brokers, assessors and
valuers, experts in jewels and pictures and manu-
scripts. The recurrent expulsions of the Jews were
but a new way of paying old debts ; they were never
enforced, and if debts were wiped off nothing more
was heard of the expulsion. " To get riches was their
rnisoH d''etre : to lose them, their rn'ison de I'lvre."
Moreover, the Jewry was a fine milch cow to thirsty
fiscal authorities. The Jews were taxed on the
occasion of any war ; for schools, for hospitals, for
wood for the bonfire on St. John's eve, for sweeping
the Place de Palais on the eve of the Fete Dieu,
for hangings for the churches on the death of a
pope. When the ancient Jewry opposite the epis-
copal palace was transferred in the thirteenth century
to the parish of St. Pierre, a family tax was imposed
of nine deniers to compensate the parish priest for the

2+7

Avignon

loss of offerings from Christians, and the synagogue
agreed to exclude from its precincts any family that
failed to pay the tax : on his part, the cure promised
to preach during Holy Week to his flock tolerance
towards their new neighbours.^ The Jews were
famous as physicians ; in the fourteenth century
twenty-five were qualified to practise, and Queen
Joan of Naples entrusted her health to a Jew.2 In
1337, so successful were Jewish physicians and
surgeons in competing with their Gentile rivals that
it was found necessary to forbid Christians to employ
them or to take any medicine supplied by them,
save in cases of imminent danger when no skilled
Christian was available.-* Jewish professors also taught
in the university ; the community had its own
tribunal for civil suits, which could in some cases
override the ordinary civil law.

Prejudice and jealousy die hard, and as late as
1724, in the instructions given to the ambassador
of the city at the court of Benedict XIII, he was
urged on behalf of the merchants of Avignon to
demand the enforcement of a bull by Clement VIII,
which forbade Jews to deal in new goods and limited
their traffic to the buying and selling of old clothes.
Complaint is made of their avidity and of their usury ;
they monopolize the home and export trade of the
city and county, especially in silk ; the bad quality of
their goods is prejudicial to the reputation of Avignon
silk ; their rate of interest, at 9 per cent., is exorbitant,
and should be fixed at 5 or 6 per cent, at most.^

^ The Place Jerusalem, and the Rues Abraham and Jacob
still remain.

^ Bulletin de Vaucluse, 1879. R. de Maulde : Les Juifs dans
let Etats Franfais du S. Siege au Moyen Age.

3 NouGi'iER : Hist. Chron.

* Bib. Calvet, MS. 2393, fol. 134.

248

The Jews

But a humble remonstrance or the masters and
baillces of the guild of merchant craftsmen in cloth
of gold and silk to the vice-legate on January 24,
171 5, would seem to prove that the Gentiles them-
selves were not without blame in the depreciation
of avignonnais stuffs. Grave loss of reputation is
accruing, the petitioners assert, from the fact that
the stuff on the looms is found by them to be cut
short in width ; their expostulations to the master-
workmen are only met by mockery and laughter ;
and since the loss of the whole of their trade was
to be feared if such evil practices continued, they
implored his eminence to enforce the old time-
honoured statutes and methods of the crafts, and to
require the maintenance of full measure and quality
in the weaving of taffety, demi-Armoisin, demi-Flor-
ence, demi-Angleterre damask and velvet, and other
stuffs, so that the good repute of the city be preserved.^

The laws against aliens were severe : no foreigner,
or tramp, without employer, or craft by which he
could earn his livelihood, or any work-shy person is
allowed in the city, and if such be found he is to be
expelled within ten days, and never to return with-
out leave of the court under pain of losing one foot ;
barbers and surgeons are to denounce to the court
any patient whom they treat for wounds or fractures ;
nor may barbers cut or remove the tonsure without
ecclesiastical authority ; no leper is to enter or to be
harboured within the city ; no butcher or other
person is to make any charivari, day or night, within
the city, either in the slaughter-house or elsewhere,
by rattling pots and pans, knives and cleavers and the
like ; spiccrs and apothecaries must not sell, or cause
to be sold, or give away, arsenic or other deadly
1 Bib. Calvet, MS. 2393,10!. 208.

2+9

Avignon

poison, either secretly or openly, which might lend
itself to wicked purposes, without special licence of
the court, under pain of loss of person and goods.

In some cases the -cries fix the maxima of wages,
and enact that no person shall presume to pay or
give to the wine-dressers or to agricultural labourers ^
more than certain specified wages : the penalty being
twenty-five livres, one fourth of which is to go to the
informer, whose name is to be kept secret.

In no media;val city were the craft guilds so well
organized or so flourishing. Little is known of their
constitution, but a profoundly interesting instrument
has survived which proves that trade disputes were
not unknown, and that strikes were sometimes settled
according to quite modern methods. On April 13,
1452, a covenant was made between Peyre Guinot,
Galhart Nicho and Peyre Ve on behalf of the
master plumbers of Avignon, and Steve Violes,
Monet Guinot and Johan Barri, varlets of the said
masters, on behalf of the journeymen, by which the
masters, under heavy penalties, were forbidden to
employ or give work to non-guild men, and the
guildsmen were forbidden to dwell or work with
blacklegs. Wages are not to be reduced, and if any
of the said masters wish to employ a varlet, and they
cannot come to terms, they may and shall choose
another master and varlet of the guild who shall
decide on the wages to be paid monthly or yearly ;
and if a guildsman shall come into Avignon and find
no work the said masters and varlets are to provide
him with a sheep, or its value, for way-money {per
passer son cam'in)?-

^ Ligonisatorihus, trenchers or diggers of the land.
^ GiRARD and Pansikr: R'iglements Corf>oratifs, p. 39. Trans-
actio facta inter maghtros payrolcrios presentis ci'vttatis A-ven. et
famulos eorundem, etc. Pilces Justijicati'ves, XXII.

250

The Jews

The statutes of 1698 are substantially the same as
those of 1458. The first article charges the Viguier
to extirpate and hunt out heresy from the city and
its territory; similar futile efforts are made to enforce
sumptuary laws, to fix the price and control the sale
of wares of all kinds, and, as in the former cries,
the greater number of the enactments deal with the
tricks and frauds of the market place, fishmongers
and butchers being especially aimed at. The city
was still unsavoury : dead animals were left in the
streets ; dunghills outside houses might be seized
and confiscated by any one ; the stench from the
burning of the hoofs and horns of cattle, from
dipping candles, was nauseating to the senses ; food
was cooked in the open streets ; the curfew bell still
tolled its hour, after which none, save the guards,
durst be seen in the street without a lantern. The
laws concerning the Jews were maintained ; an
attempt was made to get the streets paved by com-
pelling householders to lay down pebbles in front
of their houses, gardens, or shops, as far as the middle
of the road ; and if this were not done within three
days after notification by the masters of the streets,
a heavy fine was to be imposed ; windows that over-
looked a neighbour's garden or roof must be barred
and raised at least five feet above the floor ; they
must have the glass fixed so that the window could
not be moved or opened. An ordinance of Cardinal
de Foix, October 17, 1458,^ was re-enacted where-
by no minor under 25, nor any married woman
could make a legal contract without the presence of two
elder male members of the family having no interest
in the contract. The laws respecting the profession
of a barber were made more stringent : no citizen

1 GiRARDand Pansier : P'ucei Justificaii'ves, XXVIII.

Avignon

shall open a barber's shop without first passing an
examination and gaining the diploma of a master in
surgery ; but a barber's widow might keep a shop if
she employed a competent and approved master ; none
shall draw teeth or operate for stone or cataract save
master surgeons, who moreover may be called upon to
give two or three, or more visits if necessary, to the
poor in the hospitals. Apothecaries, too, must pass an
examination and serve seven years' apprenticeship.
The hours, but not the wages, of field labourers are
regulated : they must work faithfully eleven full hours
from May to July ; from August to April, nine
hours ; except November to January, seven hours.

The criminal law was still mediaeval in its barbarity :
for the first offence a thief was to be whipped ; for
the second to have his ears cut off; for the third he
was to suffer death, subject to the discretion of the
judge ; forgers and coiners were to be whipped until
the blood came, and if the forger were a notary
(against whom many enactments are directed) he was
to have his hand cut of!" for a second offence ; false
witnesses were to suffer the same punishment, even to
death, which their perjured testimony had caused to
be inflicted on their victims ; the jailers were still
empowered to charge entrance fees and for beds and
food.

Some taxed legal charges afford information of
interest : slavery was in existence, for a notary's fee
for drawing up an instrument of emancipation was
four florins ; for an act of excommunication, and
letters of the participants in the malediction and
absolution, the fee was three sous ; for a warrant of
delivery to the secular arm, six sous. Lawyers' fees
for drawing up marriage settlements convey a pleasing
impression of general well-being : the marriage

252

The Jews

settlement of a peasant, a vine-dresser, porter, shoe-
maker, tailor, mason, baker or other craft, not
exceeding 200 florins, was taxed at two florins ; not
exceeding 500, it was three florins, and so on, pro-
gressing up to 1,000 florins or more, when it was six
florins ; shopkeepers' marriage contracts appear to
have involved settlements of from 500 to 1,000
florins or more ; merchants, notaries, burgesses, from
500 to 5,000 florins ; doctors, nobles, gentlemen,
from 1,000 to 5,000 florins.

253

CHAPTER XVI

THE PLAGUE AT AVIGNON THE UNIVERSITY

Owing to the insanitary condition of the old papal
city, visitations of the plague were of appalling
severity. Of one of these, known to historians as
the Grande Peste, we have a graphic picture in the
diary of a doctor of the University of Avignon.^ On
September 4, 1580, it was reported that the plague
was in the neighbourhood, and the cardinal of
Armagnac, royal commandant of Provence during
the Huguenot wars, set a guard at the palace and
forbade any one to leave : on the 6th, the last day
of the moon, the scourge of God called the peste,
fell on the city in the house of a cobbler, Jacques
Banc, and two other deaths were soon reported. On
the 7th a priest died, and on the 8th Jean Bouche
was shot near Champfleuri for having infected
the city by secretly burying his chambermaid ; on
the 20th five plague-stricken houses were closed and
the dread plague-cross painted on the doors ; a canon
of Notre Dame was isolated in his room, and the
cardinal's page and another victim were carried dead
out of the palace ; whereupon the lord cardinal,
with twelve servants, flees to Bedarrides. God help
us ! for we have small help from such folk. The sick
and dead increase apace ; surgeons and doctors die ;

^ Relation de la peste dont la 'ville d'yifignon fut affigee Pan
ijSo, par M. Barraud, MS. 2837, Bib. Calvet, fol. 89-97.

254

The Plague at Avignon

so cruel is the plague that whole streets are depopu-
lated, especially in the lower parts of the city near
the Rhone, and on the 26th the Jacobin and the
Augustinian monasteries are closed. The mortality
at the pest house and cemetery of Champflcuri, owing
to lack of doctors and nurses was appalling ; on the
31st thirty-two houses were closed. God help us !
On November 2, the Jour des Morts, no service was
held, no bells rung ; on the 5 th an Italian was hanged
who had robbed an infected house and then mingled
with the healthy ; on the 7th a canon of Notre Dame
struck by plague fell on the choir steps of the cathedral
and, wounded in the head, crept to his room to die,
where no one dared to enter ; the churches were
silent ; no music, no organ peal was heard ; day
after day in the diary runs the same refrain : the
dead increase ! the dead increase ! On the 19th an
order was made that every one was to remain in his
house for twenty days, and not leave it ; and so folk
thronged the butchers' and other shops to lay in
provisions ; the churches were closed, and for a time
there was a lull in the mortality, but during the first
week in December deaths were more numerous than
ever. One merchant was publicly whipped for con-
cealing a dead body and then casting it into the
street, and a woman stripped to the waist was
scourged for concealing her dead child three days ;
then, naked and streaming with blood, she was forced
to carry her unburied infant to the cemetery at
Champfleuri. On December 7 one of the most
amazing incidents in this calamitous time occurred.
An order came from our lord the pope at Rome saying
that a certain holy person had revealed an infallible
remedy : they were to bury a woman upright and
straightway the plague would cease, and so a woman

255

Avignon

who had died of the pest was buried upright at St.
Symphorien. God grant it may be so and help us !
Amen !

Horrors accumulated on the devoted heads of the
citizens. Famine trod on the heels of plague, and
the consuls bought up wheat at twenty-eight sous
and sold it to poor folk at thirty-two. God confound
them ! Amen ! Meanwhile the lord cardinal was
making good cheer; no more help from him, who was
useless as a barrel with the bottom knocked out. On
December 28 a man was seen issuing from an infected
house ; a passer-by told him it was an ill deed ; the
man drew a dagger and stabbed him : he lay where
he fell and bled to death, for there were no police.
That same day a sick man was hanged at Champfleuri
for being seen about the streets.

During January 1 58 i the Angel of Death stays not
his hand ; God is angry with us for closing the
churches ; may He give us counsel, for those that
rule us know no more than a horse. God confound
them, they think only of selling their wheat. On
January, Mouxillon, a Jew, was hanged at the
entrance of the ghetto, and an Italian in front ot
the Hotel de Ville for stealing from plague-stricken
houses. On January 18 a Jew died in the ghetto ot
the Rue Calandre — the first Jew attacked since the
plague began — and on the 26th the concierge of the
Hotel de Ville was arrested and his books were con-
fiscated : found guilty of having defrauded the city
and supplied bad food to the sick at Champfleuri, he
and six accomplices were hanged on April 3. Dis-
graceful scenes were witnessed at the pest house at
Champfleuri. While the sick were dying by hun-
dreds, the surgeons were usually drunk, and spent
every evening quarrelling and fighting. And during

256

'The Plague at Avignon

all this dreadful time the Huguenot armies were at
the gates of Avignon, and Diedo, the papal com-
missary from Rome, was busy slaying his tens while
the Angel of Death was slaying his thousands. Poor
wretches, accused of plotting against the city, had lain
in prison two and a half years awaiting their doom ;
the pursuivant of death had arrived, and, having
extorted confessions by torture, on January 23, 1581,
five traitors were hanged in front of the palace. The
body of one who had cheated the gallows by killing
himself with a nail was dragged out from the palace
and, with the others, strung up head downwards on
a long beam. The bodies were left hanging until
noon of the next day, when their heads were cut off,
put in a sack and exposed on the city walls. On
June 13 other prisoners were drawn and quartered
before the palace. There had been more hangings
in eight months than in ten years before, and if such
folk are sent from Rome, we shall all be hanged little
by little.

On December 13, 1580, three hundred Huguenots
had ravaged the outskirts of the city, they killed six
Jews and took half a score prisoners, scaring the in-
habitants of the suburbs into the plague-stricken city ;
on February 5, 1581, the prince of the brigands, alias
the Prince of Condc, is at Orange to seek money and
to lead the traitorous heretics against our good king
Henry — God confound the Prince of Conde. On
April 5 news comes that the heretics of Orange have
taken fifteen villages in the Venaissin. Thus the
unhappy city of Avignon, a prey to the three furies of
plague, war and famine, reels through the spring of
I 58 I until, in the summer, the awful tide of mortality
begins to ebb ; the churches open again ; the full toll
of death is almost taken ; the lord cardinal of Armag-

8 257

Avignon

nac and his suite return, and on September i8 the
illustrious fugitive is met in the early morning at
Notre Dame by the canons and the consuls. As he
descended from his litter, the cardinal knelt down
and the provost gave him the cross to kiss ; where-
upon they all ascended to the church singing Sacerdos
et pontifex, accompanied with musical instruments.
Arrived before the altar, the Te Dcum was sung,
followed by Ecce anc'illa dom'ini, with music ; Ora
pro nobis was sung by the children of the choir
and the prayer Grat'iam tuam by the most illustrious
cardinal himself; after which his eminence gave
benediction ; all the officials came to do him reverence,
and then he entered the palace. On Sunday the
cardinal dined with the abbot of St. Andre, his
greatest enemy, who had been a Jew, and the cele-
brations ended on October 6 with a general pro-
cession and salvos of artillery. When the procession
reached the beautiful cross on the Rocher all cried
aloud thrice : " Misericorde ! " Thus ended the
ceremony of thanks to God for deliverance from the
great plague of i 580-1.

It would, however, be a grave misconception to
assume that the magistrates made no efforts to combat
the scourge. An admirable code of sanitary regula-
tions was drawn up when the plague was near, by the
Bureau de la Sante appointed by the magnificent
signors of the Consulate and published on August 24,
1580. As soon as a case of plague was notified the
patient was to be sent to Champfleuri ; the whole ot
the inhabitants of the house were to be isolated in
wooden huts for forty days, the house itself closed
and padlocked and a big white cross h'len apparente
painted on the door, lest any one should lean or rub
against the house. The house was then to be dis-

258

Ihe Plague at Avignon

infected, and since experience had shown that women
could not be trusted for this work, but, for the
sake of some rag or other frippery, often failed to
burn all the bedding and linen, Monsieur Jean had
been engaged at a big salary, and he and his aydes had
agreed to cleanse infected houses. Strict order was
to be kept in the isolation huts ; there was to be no
dancing, or excessive visiting or gossiping ; no citizen
shall be seen in the streets at night — none save the
soldiers of the guard ; no assembly of more than four
persons shall meet together in any place, either in the
town, or outside, or on the bridge ; every householder
must clean the street in front of his house ; if any
rags, or old clothes, or old ropes were found, he was
incontinently to burn them ; none shall keep silk-
worms, or pigs, or geese or other beast that engenders
foulness or stench ; for greater purgation it was
ordained that twice a day every one, either in his
house, or in the street, should make a fire of sweet-
smelling herbs, such as rosemary, sage, marjoram, and
frequently perfume his house. Carters bringing in pro-
visions must take the nearest way to their destination,
and beware lest they rub against the walls and doors
of the houses, and be careful to let nothing fall from
their carts or to leave them untended ; and, since it
often happens that the stricken seek remedies of their
own accord, guides are provided to walk before them,
to lead the way, carrying a white staff to warn folk
not to approach such sick folk ; these guides were also
to conduct the washerwomen to the place appointed
for them, and they were to be men of discretion and
not women or children ; all mendicants were to be
sent to the church of St. Ruf, fed with sufficient bread
and wine and given a small pittance ; no furniture
was to be taken out of infected houses for gift or sale,

s 2 259

Avignon

and no one to move from one house to another with-
out licence from the consuls. But since all human
wisdom is vain except it be aided by divine grace, and
since the plague is truly a scourge of God, Messieurs
the consuls implore His mercy and goodness, and
beyond the solemn prayers which are and have been
made continually, morning and afternoon, the Con-
servators of Health have made a vow that perpetually
on the morrow of the feast of Monsieur St. Sebastian
they and their successors will have high mass said in
the Church of St. Agricol in honour of the blessed
martyrs, and also in honour of the blessed Virgin
Mary and of St. Agricol, St. Roch and St. Anastatius :
and when the masses are said the altar shall be illumined
with eight wax candles and twelve torches ; and the
consuls and the commissioners and the city councillors
shall be present at the mass, each holding a lighted
candle in his hand, praying for the health of our
city : and on these days one hundred measures of
wheat shall be distributed among the shamefaced poor
{pauvres honteux). May God, by his holy grace, deign
to hear the cry of his people, and by the light of His
countenance change their hearts, forgive their sins and
iniquities and lead them in the path of virtue, that our
city be preserved from war, famine and pestilence. ^

The official dietary of the sick at Champfleuri was,
on paper, no less admirable. In the morning a
potage with yolk of eggs and crushed prunes for those
who ate well ; dinner at ten o'clock consisted of a good
potage with herbs, roast meat for those most sick,
boiled meat for those who ate well, and sheep's
trotters for any who desired them ; at three o'clock
a snack {goute) was given — toasted bread for the sick
with sugar in their wine, or roasted apples ; at six
' Bib. Calvet, MS. 2837, fol. 32,
260

The University

o'clock came supper — bread, soup and roast meat ;
at midnight a hot bouillon.^ But in times of general
panic, administrative decrees and charitable organiza-
tions avail but little, and it is scarcely to be wondered
at, that, when the sweet sanctities of family affection
are trampled underfoot, the bonds of civic life are
broken and the voice of public duty silent.

The flourishing university of Avignon suffered seri-
ouslyifrom the return of the Holy See to Rome. The
revival of learning and enthusiasm for dialectics due
to the spirit, if not to the methods, of Abelard and
his disciples, had been felt at Avignon long before the
times of Clement V, as the foundation of a college
to lodge and board eight poor scholars in 1 267
proves. In 1298 the Count of Provence took the
scholars of Avignon under his especial care, and
authorized a certain banker to lend money on interest,
in spite of the laws against usury, to students whose
remittances were delayed. The actual foundation of
a stud'ium generak was, however, due to Boniface VIII
by a Bull (1303) inspired with noble zeal for the
advancement of learning. The scholars, many of
whom came from over the Alps imbued with the
democratic spirit of the Italian universities, made
several attempts to introduce the principle of self-
government into the constitution of the Avignon
studium, and a serious revolt, in 1393, of the whole
body of scholars, who bound themselves by oath to
desert the schools until their demands were granted,
was suppressed with difficulty. The advantage offered
by the Alma Mater of Avignon to her students in the

' MS. 2837, Bib. Calvet. The dietary refers to the plague of
1629-30, but probably the regulations are based on those of
1580,

261

Avtgnon

matter of promotion proved a powerful attraction ;
their chances of a preferential position on the Avignon
benefice-roll drew the scions of the aristocratic families
of Gaul, and in the roll of 1394 out of 1064 names
forty are those of nobles. But the desolate years of
the fifteenth century told heavily on the prosperity
of the city and of its university, and a crisis was
reached when in 1478 the doctors refused to lecture
any longer without salaries, which the city refused
to pay. Fortunately for the university, Avignon was
then ruled by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, better
known to history as the great Pope Julius II, who
in 1476 had founded the College du Roure ^ for
poor scholars. The cardinal, a beloved nephew of
Pope Sextus IV, induced that pontiff to assign an
annual income of 600 florins from the papal revenues
to provide salaries for eight doctors of law ; to endow
the university with the fine papal library, and to
grant many other privileges. The elevation of the
cardinal legate, its benefactor, to the papal chair
brought added prestige and prosperity to the uni-
versity, and no less than seven colleges were founded
at Avignon between 1425 and 1500.

The students, foiled in their attempts seriously to
modify the autocratic and hierarchic constitution of
the university, directed their energies to the organiza-
tion of a students' guild, whose curious and unique
statutes found official recognition. The guild, dedi-
cated to St. Sebastian, was an imperium hi imperio, and
founded on the usual lines of a mediasval corporation ;
it aimed at promoting good-fellowship and mutual
assistance in sickness and death ; it had a quasi-
religious character, and provided for the saying of
masses and the preaching of sermons in the guild
' Now the Hotel de la Prefecture.
262

The University

chapel at the Church of ihc Dominican friars. One
object of the guild was declared to be the making
an end of the nefarious and incredible enormities,
the drunkenness and immorality, that attended the
purgation of a freshman {bejaunus) ^ which appears
to have involved a preliminary banquet, the expenses
of which were apparently found by the neophyte,
who, if he had scruples as to the virtue of temperance,
might devote part of the feast money to the honour
of God and of St. Sebastian. Every ordinary member
contributed six grossi to the funds of the guild ; every
noble, twelve grossi, but impecunious students were
enrolled free if they swore they were too poor to
pay. The subscriptions were to be faithfully applied
to the most glorious work of the guild, and if any
freshman proved recalcitrant the statutes provided
an effectual, if startling, remedy : his books were
stolen and impounded until he paici up and joined
the guild. Having paid his footing, and being en-
rolled, the freshman lost the opprobious title of
bejaunus, and, after a year's residence, was promoted
to the dignity of studentship ; some kind of mock
trial appears to have formed part of his purgation.

The proceedings of the abbot's court of the College
of Annecy, founded by Cardinal Jean de Broniac in
1425,- throw light on these quaint mediaeval bodies
which were so often suppressed by rectors of univer-
sities. The abbot held his court twice weekly, not
only to purge and initiate bcjauni, but to enforce
regulations as to the behaviour of freshmen and
students ; the freshman was to serve the students at

' Bee jaunc : a yellow-beak or fledgeling.

- It lodged eight poor scholars of Savoy, eight of Geneva,
eight of Avignon, the Comtat or Provence. Fornery, Vol. I.
p. 448.

263

Avignon

table, he must not stand between a student and the
fire in hall, nor sit at the first table, nor refuse to
give place to a student, nor allow himself to be
addressed as D online : he had also special duties to per-
form at chapel, and for every breach of the abbot's de-
crees he was chastised with a wooden spoon, whereas
a student was let of}" with a fine.^ The university
quarter is recalled to-day by the Rue des Etudes,
and several illustrious names — Cujas, Gassendi, among
others — have rendered the old papal studium famous.

^ H. Rashdall : The Unfuersities of Europe in the Middle
Ages, Vol. II. pt. i. pp. 170-179, and Vol. II. pt. ii. pp. 632-
634-

264

CHAPTER XVU

AVIGNON UNDER THE LEGATES THE HUGUENOTS THE

INQUISITION ROYAL VISITORS TEMPORARY ANNEXA-
TIONS TO FRANCE

The political history of Avignon since the final
quenching of the Great Schism and the return of the
papacy to Rome sinks to little more than local
interest. Government by cardinal-legates continued
until 1 693, when reiterated complaints of absenteeism
at Paris or Rome led the popes themselves to appoint
only vice-legates. The Cardinal de Foix who died
at Avignon in 1463 was the legate who built the
steps of the platform in front of Notre Dame des
Doms, and he contrived that the flight should consist
of forty-nine steps, that being the number of words
in the Lord's I'rayer.^ The Cardinal de Foix was
succeeded by Charles de Bourbon, and he, in 1476,
by the greatest of the legates, Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, who, as bishop of Avignon, had rebuilt the
episcopal palace, and in 1475 had moved his uncle
Sixtus IV to elevate Avignon to the dignity of an
archbishopric, with the bishops of Carpentras, Cavail-
lon and Vaison as suffragans. It was during his
legateship that tlic survivors of the Pazzi -' conspiracy

' The number in the Vulgate. The steps were rebuilt in
the eighteenth century.

'^ Author of the assassination of Giuliano He' Medici in the
cathedral of Florence, April 26, 1478,

265

Avignon

fled for refuge to Avignon, and thus many noble
Florentine families became her naturalized citizens.

In 1 516 Francis I, returning a conqueror from
Marignano, rested several days and was feted at
Avignon, and again was seen there on his way from
the celebration of the Dauphin's marriage with
Catherine de' Medici at Marseilles in 1533, when
the famous visit to Laura's tomb took place.

XOTRE DAME DES DOMS, AVIGNON

The morbid piety and cruel fanaticism which,
after the defeat of Pavia, wrought upon the foul
mind of Francis, and which drew a noble protest
from Rome against the horrible persecutions at Paris,
had its counterpart in the south. In 1540 orders
came from the king to his parlement of Provence
that the Protestants were to be exterminated, and on
November 18, 1540, "those venerable magistrates,
zealous for religion and for their prince, condemned

266

Avtgnoti under the Legates

nineteen of the most guilty to be burned alive ; their
chief refuge, the borough of Merindol, to be utterly-
destroyed ; the bridges to be demolished, and the
woods, for zoo yards around, to be cut down and
eradicated."^ The Protestants flew to arms, and

^ f~^ 1 i ffl D S? "* "^^ —

ARCHIEPISCOPAI, PALACE, AVIGNON

thus the fair lands of Provence became a prey to the
horrors of religious fury and civil war.

The pcupk idiot, says Nouguier, seduced by their
preaching, began to trouble the whole of France.
But the " untutored folk," who have always persisted
in associating genuine piety and sincere faith with
personal rectitude, had no small reason for being
' Fornery, Hht. dii Comtc I'enasssin, Vol. I. p. 5H'

267

Avignon

seduced by the Huguenot preachers. The corruption
of the orthodox clergy is evident from the repeated
ordinances of the synods of Avignon. The synod
of I 509 prohibits playing at dice or cards in gambling

ANCIEN PLACE PIE, AVIC,.\ON

hells, or the frequenting of taverns ; priests were
required to reside in their cures ; the synod of 161 3
issues a long series of stringent rules designed to
combat the growing scandals of the clergy, the
unseemliness of their dress, the carrying of arms,
cohabitation with women, and recites a terrible list

268

The Huguenots

of crimes against morals which are to be referred to
the bishop's court. ^

The Huguenots seized on Orange, and an in-
fluential citizen of Avignon and former president of
the parlement of Orange, Perrinet Parpaille, having
been captured on his return from Lyons, where he
had been to raise money on the silver reliquaries
pillaged from Orange, was delivered to the authorities
of Avignon. After suspending him in a cage to be
mocked at for three days, they beheacied him, and
razed his mansion to the ground : on its site the
Place Pie became a lasting memorial of his fate.

Unprofitable and wearisome are the annals of
these distressful decades, during which Catholic and
Protestant alike strove for a bloody pre-eminence in
cruelty and rapine. Avignon and the Venaissin, by
reason of their proximity to the Huguenot princi-
pality of Orange, were the theatre of many a stubborn
fight, and the old papal city suffered much from open
assault and secret conspiracy until the peace of Nimes
(1578) brought a temporary cessation from the
horrors of religious warfare. Those were the times
of fighting prelates. Domenico Grimaldi, bishop of
Cavaillon and vice-legate of Avignon, as a good
pastor, daily after celebrating mass would put on
his cuirass, mount horse, and armed cap-a-pie, sally
forth with the noblesse and freely expose his life in
battle at the head of the Catholic troops to defend
the faith and save his dear sheep from ravening
wolves.-' Domenico was no raw recruit in secular
warfare. He had been summus questoroi the papal con-
tingent at the battle of Lepanto, and played a hero's
part in that glorious victory over the Turkish Armada.

^ Nouguier, Hht. Chron., pp. 198, 222 et seq.
- Nouguier, p. 210.

269

Avignon

Great was the consternation in Avignon at the
approach of the redoubtable Admiral Coligny in i 570,
The city was provisioned for a siege ; every male
between eighteen and sixty was ordered to prepare
to light, and the strong arm of the king of France
was raised in her defence ; some galleys of the Duke
of Tuscany brought 800 Italian auxiliaries. But the
dreaded Huguenot chief, although he crossed the
Rhone at La V^oulte, returned without beholding
the walls of Avignon.

Within the city heretical doctrines had made small
headway. In 1547 signs of contamination were
detected among the students of the university ; two
of whom, having been convicted of heresy by the
Inquisition, were led barefoot and bareheaded and
clothed in their shirts, each holding a lighted taper
in his hand, to all the collegiate churches of the city,
where they abjured their errors and craved pardon ot
God : the Serjeants who conducted them carried
faggots of wood to show that ces miserable! deserved
the stake. Arrived before the cathedral, they were
exposed to the crowd on a high scaffold ; a sermon
was preached at them ; they were then imprisoned
for life in the papal palace, and three days a week
made to fast on bread and water. ^

Paul III, alarmed at the progress of the sectaries,
had re-established the Tribunal of the Holy Office
at Avignon in 1541, and by a brief given at Rome
June 5, I 538, bade the Cardinal Bishop of Carpentras
use all his efforts to prevent the heresiarchs obtaining
a foothold in the papal dominions. He was to search
them cTut with diligence and expel them from the pro-
vince ; to punish and exterminate them and appoint
a Religious of the Order of the Friar Preachers as

' Fornery, Vol. II. pp. 3, 4.
270

'Hie hiquisition

Inquisitor who was to uproot heresy and cleanse the
papal territory of heretics : Father Bernard Berard
was appointed first Inquisitor. The tribunal, how-
ever, appears to have had no very onerous duties
within the city : it existed down to the Revolution,
and the names of the Inquisitors may still be read,
the last being Father Jean Baptiste Mabil, who on
March 30, 1760, had certain heretical books burned
by the hangman before the portal of the Dominican
Friary.

But even in tolerant Avignon it was not a pleasant
experience to fall into the hands of the Holy Office.
On February 24, 1701, the Sieur Peironi, who lay
in the prison of the Inquisition at Avignon, attainted
.md convicted of the heresy of Quietism, was con-
demned to make public abjuration in the Dominican
church. A platform was raised in front of the pulpit,
whereon sat the officers and secretary of the Inquisi-
tion : opposite this and below the pulpit was another
platform whereon stood the Sieur Peironi, bare-
headed, while a Dominican friar in the pulpit read in
a loud voice, count by count, all the charges in the
indictment against him, in order that the whole con-
gregation might hear the crimes whereof the accused
had been convicted. This done, the culprit descended
from his eminence and ascended the platform where
the officials of the Inquisition sat, fell prostrate at the
feet of the father Inquisitor, made abjuration of his
errors and recited the Miserere, during which the
Inquisitor struck him with a wand he held in his
hand. This humiliation ended, the patient was
clothed in a tunic, marked with a red cross — the
penitential habit he was to wear during the ten
years' imprisonment to which he had been con-
demned : he was to fast every Friday and to pay the

271

Avignon

cost of the proceedings.^ On February 26, 1743,
Pere Hyacinth, on assuming office as Inquisitor, for-
bade any person of any state or condition to employ
any heretic, at home or elsewhere, either in the care
of silkworms or harvesting or in any other occupation
on pain of exemplary chastisement.-

A powerful auxiliary in the maintenance of the
Catholic faith in Avignon was the establishment of
the Jesuits in 1564. For, says Nouguier, if heresy
sought to steal into our city, God, by intercession of
the very glorious Virgin Mary, sent the Fathers of the
Society of Jesus to serve as a shield and buckler
against it.^ On August 14 the city purchased for the
Fathers the palace of La Motte (where St. Catherine
had been lodged) and endowed them with an annual
revenue of four hundred gold crowns. So successful
did the methods of these marvellous educators prove
that pupils crowded their schools, and in 1 61 7 the
city allocated one thousand crowns to extend their
class-rooms : subsequent endowments made the Avig-
non branch of the Society of Jesus one of the richest
and most influential of the order.

Avignon, in these troublous times, was twice
honoured by royal visits : in September 24, I 564, the
feeble and irresolute Charles IX, with the queen
mother Catherine de' Medici, and his brother the
Duke of Orleans, and the Cardinals of Bourbon and of
Guise, made a solemn entry into the city, the king
riding under a rich dais of cramoisin embroidered in
gold with fleurs-de-lys. The exalted guests were
lodged in the great palace, and after Charles had
sworn on the cross in the Cathedral to defend the
Holy See and her rights, he was presented with a cup

1 Bib. Calvet, MS. 2392, fol. 217.

2 Fol. 99. '■' Hist. Chron., p. 210.

272

Royn/ Visitors

of gold worth two hundred crowns, filled with two
hundred medals of gold, each weighing two crowns,
and bearing on the face a portrait of himself laurel-
crowned, and on the obverse the city of Avignon with
the words ^venion'is mumis. There w-ere great and
gorgeous doings in Notre Dame on the feast of St.
Michael when Charles gave fifteen gold crowns at
the offertory : he left Avignon on October i6 by a
bridge of boats across the Rhone.

Another of the royal authors of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, Henry III, made a less regal approach
to the papal city on his return from Poland in
1574 to assume the crown at Paris. The royal
pages were forced to pawn their cloaks on the way
to get food and lodging ; the boat that carried
the king's household luggage down the Rhone
from Lyons foundered at the arches of the Pont St.
Esprit ; the baggage was lost and thirty or forty of the
passengers were drowned ; on land, so daring were
the Huguenots that several of the king's horses were
captured and some of the suite stripped, made
prisoners or slain. Henry made his royal entry on
October 27, 1574, with the usual c^emonies. On
November 25, the king afforded the citizens of
Avignon an edifying spectacle of royal humility and
penitence by taking part, clothed in sackcloth, in a
public procession to the chapel of the White Penitents,^
together with the queen mother and the King and
Queen of Navarre and all his court, before presiding
over a meeting of the States of Languedoc, in the
refectory of the Charterhouse of Villeneuve. Indeed,
the recurrent visits of exalted persons were a heavy
charge on the revenues of the city : in 1600 the
extraordinary pomp and circumstances that attended
1 See p. 353.
T 273

A CORNER IN THE CHARTREUSE, VILLENEUVE-
LES-AVIGNO.\

"Royal Visitors

the three days' sojourn of the pope's niece, Marie de'
Medici, on her way to join Henry W , her royal
spouse, was long remembered, and the city fathers,
knowing that Cardinal Aldobrandini, the pope's
nephew, purposed resting at Avignon on his way to
Paris as papal legate, carefully preserved the arcs-de-
triomphe and other decorations prepared for Marie's
reception, and by altering the arms and devices made
them do service again at the cardinal's solemn entry.
A cross of gold set \vith diamonds worth eight hundred
crowns and some silver plate were presented to his
eminence, who gracefully responded that he would
present the silver plate to the city, but as for the
cross he thought he would be wanting in respect if he
failed to retain it. In 1634 Cardinal Mazarin was
appointed vice-legate, and Richelieu, having retired
to Avignon during the period of his ill-favour at
Court, dwelt tliere for three years, and found the days
of his sojourn pass so pleasantly that in 1639 ^"^^
petitioned the pope, though unsuccessfully, to be
appointed vice-legate.

The question of standing well with the powerful
masters of France was an ever-present concern of the
pontifical authorities ; the independence of the papal
state existed only by their good-will, and the legates
lost no opportunity of ingratiating themselves with
the royal House. Louis XIII, at his magnificent
reception in 1622, was presented with two hundred
medals of gold, in a rich vessel, by the city, and with
a richly caparisoned charger, with eight hundred
gold crowns by the county. In the following year
Urban VIII offered Avignon for the secret meeting-
place of the plenipotentiaries of the League of
France, Venice and the Protestant powers of Europe,
which Cardinal Richelieu had organized against

T 2 275

Avtgnon

Spain and Austria; and in October 1623 the envoys
of England, Holland, Denmark, Savoy and of the
Protestant states of the Empire, and of the Republic
of Venice, entered Avignon disguised as merchants.

The existence of a strong city on the boundary of
a considerable territory belonging to a feeble theocratic
state wedged into the kingdom of France and com-
manding the passage of the Rhone, was none the less
embarrassing to the monarchy in times of foreign
complication. In 1536 Francis I, alarmed by the
threatened invasion of Provence by the Emperor
Charles V, determined to prevent the city falling
into the enemy's hands, and sent Marshall Viellevllle
with six thousand men to take possession : this the
royal favourite effected by a clever ruse. The young
Marshall rode up to the gate and sought a parley
with the vice-legate, who, standing on the walls,
replied he had orders to open the gates to neither
belligerent, whereupon Vielleville retired and re-
turned with six men, ragged, ill-shod bearing rusty
arquebuses, and craved permission for his small escort
to enter the city for the repair of their arms and for
the purchase of a small supply of powder. The un-
suspecting vice-legate freely granted the favour. No
sooner was the portcullis raiseci than the FalstafRan
escort scuffled with the guards while one thousand
men, who had lain in ambush, rushed in and the
place was won. The Marshall kept his men well in
hand, no violence was done even to women or Jews,
and Captain Armiailles and five men-at-arms were
shot for having disobeyed orders. ^ The danger
passed, the city was evacuated; but in 157^ '^'^'^
again in 1583, Henry III ofi^ered to exchange the
Marquisat of Saluces against Avignon and the
1 Bib. Calvet, MS. 2374, fol. 64.
276

Royal Visitors

County Venaissin ; and thrice under the later Louis
the papal dominions in France were seized to force
the pope's hand, and as many times the vice-legates
were reinstated.

The citizens, among whom the old traditions of
communal liberty survived, hated their papal governors
and their Italian garrison, and always welcomed the
French occupation. They were a turbulent folk.
During a period of scarcity in 1539, when bread
was dear, the housewives of Avignon, hearing that
cargoes of wheat were being shipped near the Porte
du Rhone, marched thither, seized the gate, left a
guard there and proceeded to loot the barges. The
boatmen who resisted were pitched into the river,
and when the men in charge of some of the barges
flung the gangways into the Rhone to cut oft" access,
several women leapt into the swift current, swam to
the floating planks and replaced them. Their good
men followed, and soon seven barges were cleared of
corn. The magistrates attempted to imprison the
ringleaders, but a multitude of men and women
forced the prisons, and a night of jubilation followed.
A few days passed and all appeared to have been for-
gotten. But the authorities were only biding their
time : on a day, troops were secretly drafted into the
city to reinforce the Italian garrison ; the principal
streets were occupied, the gates closed and the ring-
leaders again arrested : on the morrow, from the
gibbets in all the market-places throttled corpses
were dangling in the air, and the shrieks of lesser
culprits, who were scourged until the blood came, filled
the streets. Such severe measures, says the historian,
are necessary to restrain the people within their duty.^
But not to win their aftection, as the sequel will show.
^ Fornery, Vol. I. 529.

277

Avignon

In 1652, during the rule ot an incompetent vice-
legate, Lorenzo Corsi, who had succeeded in kindling
the hatred of the nobles without winning the good-
will of the citizens, disturbances arose owing to the
scarcity of provisions, and on December 4. the rioters
fell upon the Italian guard at the gates, who escaped
being cut to pieces only by taking refuge in the
cathedral. Corsi invoked the aid of the Bishop of
Cavaillon and a detachment of soldiers ; the citizens
threw up barricades and rushed to arms. A confer-
ence was ending happily when some noblemen's
lackeys insulted and fired on the people, and a noble
dame was heard to exclaim, " All this vile rabble ought
to be driven out of the city ! " The people, goaded to
fury, mustered six thousand strong, attacked the houses
of the nobles, pillaged, and set them on fire. Order
was at last restored, and Corsi, to the joy of the nobles,
was recalled to Rome on October 6, 1653 ; where-
upon M. de Castelet, meeting a tailor on the Pont St.
Benezet, mockingly asked if he were going to Rome
with his friend Corsi ; the man replied ingenuously :
" Yes, if I am bidden." Castelet then ordered his
lackeys to chastise the varlet with their swords. The
victim, bleeding from his wounds, entered Avignon,
and the citizens again rose, fell upon Castelet's two
palaces and looted them. Again the revolt was sup-
pressed, and six of the ringleaders, in the darkness of the
night, were haled out of prison and sent to the galleys.
On June 4 Corsi's successor, Agostino Franciotti,
entered Avignon with eight hundred men-at-arms
and signalized his advent by sentencing to the rack a
republican cobbler who had affixed on his door a copy
of the Crillon arms with the device rox populi vox
del. Franciotti arrested and hanged the chiefs of the
revolutionists within five hours, and by order of the

278

Temporary Annexation to France

pope the city was forced to compensate the nobles to
the extent of forty thousand crowns.^

In 1662 came the sweet season of revenge on the
hated Italians. Louis XIV, when the news reached
him of a couardly attack on his ambassador at Rome,
took prompt measures to bring the Holy See to
reason, and at two o'clock of Saturday, September 30,
Vice-Legate Lascaris was roused from his siesta in the
palace by a peremptory summons to an interview
with a royal officer, Baron de Buscat : the baron's
embassy was brief and arrogant. His orders were to
expel the papal garrisons from Avignon and the
county, take possession of the territory in his master's
name, and hold the vice-legate as hostage. The news
soon leaked out, and the citizens, delirious with
joy, and crying " Long live the king and away with
the Italians," hastened to the Hotel de Ville, forced
the consuls to refuse any help to Lascaris and to
accompany them to the city gates. The Italians
were then dismissed and their places filled by a citizen
guard. " God have mercy on them," says an eye-
witness, " they went away crestfallen and fearful."
The citizens proceeded to invest the palace, inter-
cepted all the legate's correspondence, and sent the
Count of Issoirs to inform M. de Mercoeur, governor
of Provence, of what had happened. " 'Twas well
done," answered M. de Mercoeur, and on the 7th the
Count of Issoirs was dispatched to Paris to know the
king's pleasure. Louis received the envoy graciously
in the Louvre, presented his royal portrait set in
diamonds, worth eight thousand livres, to the Count,
and on the 23rd royal letters arrived declaring the
papal territory united to the crown of France. The
gratified citizens flocked to the Hotel de Villc, drums
' Bibl. Calvet, MS. 2374, and ForiiLMV II. 362-36(>.

279

Avignon

rolled, and amid a scene of wild excitement the papal
arms were torn down and the royal arms of France
hoisted in their place, both there and over the portal
of the papal palace.

Many efforts were made to persuade the vice-
legate to leave the palace, but to one and all Lascaris
replied, " I cannot do this thing : I am responsible to
the pope alone, and he to God." To the demands of
the ushers of the Parliament of Aix in their full robes,
and bearing their wands of office and attended by
four archers of the royal guard, the same answer was
twice returned. The* usual city Christmas gifts to
the vice-legate of twelve brace of partridges, the same
number of hares, capons, boxes of sweets and a purse
of a hundred silver crowns were withheld by the
consuls, while increased tokens of royal favour arrived
in the form of portraits of Louis set in diamonds for
the first consul and other chief magistrates who
assumed the panoply of supreme office and attended
mass with an escort of armed city guards standing
musket on shoulder at the entrance to the choir.
Louis protested his affection for his very dear and
well-beloved the consuls of Avignon, who should never
have cause to repent their devotion to his Majesty.
May was passed in a round of processions, Te Deums,
salvos of artillery, illuminations, fireworks, and free
banquets given by rich citizens. The merchants on
the 8th carpeted the Place du Change, and merry
lads and lasses danced the whole night through. This
affair, says the chronicler, "hath already cost the city
twenty-five thousand crowns, and the end is not yet."
On July 26 the city and county were formally annexed
to Provence, and on the 27th the president and chief
officers of the Parliament, with their archers, dismissed
and disarmed the Swiss papal guards and replaced
280

Temporary Annexation to France

them hy French soldiers ; whereat more Te Ueums,
cannon, fireworks, and rejoicings. Meanwhile, obdurate
Lascarls had barricaded himself in the palace, and to
him advances the president, M. d'Oppide, brushing
aside all opposition, and a stormy and lengthy inter-
view takes place. The vice-legate remains inflexible:
rather than yield to force he will die at his post, and
hints that if he did leave it would only be to fall beneath
a score of poignards. " Know," answers the President,
" that we are not in Rome, and the king's officers are
not assassins." ' Lascaris then craveci permission to
launch the papal interdict before he left, in order to
save himself from disgrace at Rome : he would affix
it by night and thus avoid any disturbance. The
President, whose chief concern was to prevent its
issue, in his turn proved inexorable. At length the
vice-legate was hurried into a coach at eleven o'clock
and escorted out of Provence in the darkness, bearing
his spiritual artillery with him undischarged : fire-
works and salvos of artillery sped him on his way. On
August 28 the Count of Merinville, the newly-
appointed royal governor, received a boisterous wel-
come at Avignon ; the royal arms shone in all the
glory of new paint from every inn, and more powder
was harmlessly consumed.-

But, put not thy trust in princes ! On September 9,
1664, the brazen throats of cannon were again vomit-
ing fumes of villainous saltpetre, and not for royal
envoys, but to salute a papal legate. Cardinal Chigi,

' One of the French ambassador's suite had been killed at
Rome.

- The Avignonnais have not lost their love of noise. During
the general election of May, 1910, pandemonium reigned in
Avignon for two days, and the crepitation of bombs and discharge
of fireworks killed sleep for two nights in celebration of the
return of Mi Pourijuery de Boisserin.

281

Avignon

and to celebrate the return of hated Lascaris :
Louis, having obtained full satisfaction from Rome,
had made, by the treaty of Pisa, formal retrocession of
the city and county to the Holy See (February 12,
1664). Lascaris, however, had only come to take
formal possession. On September 1 1 a new vice-
legate of the princely house of the Colonna entered on
his duties, and on the 13th a great set piece of fire-
works blazed before the papal palace ; but, says our
chronicler, " 'twas a dismal failure although it cost
fifteen hundred crowns " ; on the morrow the cardinal
legate left for Rome, having given " each of the auditors
of the Rota a gold medal worth three pistoles and other
officials silver medals with the effigy of Alexander VII
on the face and Our Lord washing the disciples' feet
on the obverse."

■ Colonna inaugurated his rule with a high hand, and
as the result of obnoxious and arbitrary decrees the
citizens, on October 23, flew to arms, crying, " Long
live the Consuls and Liberty." The poor, scared
Italians were again evicted from their posts ; three
were slain ; others flung from the ramparts ; siege
was put to the palace and a treaty extorted from
Colonna. The vice-legate agreed to dismiss the
Italian garrison, to surrender his cannon to the Hotel
de Ville, to withdraw the hated decrees, grant an
amnesty and obtain papal ratification. Meanwhile,
both parties appealed to Paris : the citizens for royal
support in shaking oft" the Italian yoke ; the papalists
for royal help in restoring order and obedience.
Louis protested his great affection for the citizens and
called a conference at Villeneuve, at the same time
advising Rome of the turbulent, seditious and unstable
nature of the people, and suggesting that his Holiness
Alexander VII should consent, for a consideration, to

282

Temporary Annexation to France

deliver the city and county over to the stronger arm
of the French monarchy. Alexander decided not to
barter away the patrimony of the Church, since in the
event of complications in Italy, Avignon might once
more serve as a city of refuge to an errant pope — a
prophetic word, for had Avignon remained in posses-
sion of the Holy See in 1870, the course of modern
Italian history would have been profoundly affected.
Colonna returned from the conference at Villeneuve
accompanieei by M. de MerccEur, who, to the amaze-
ment of the citizens, declared in a stern voice that it
was unseemly for armed subjects to treat with their
sovereign lord, and ordered the consuls immediately
to disarm the people and deliver the city artillery and
military stores to the palace arsenal. The Grand
Monarquc then, in his best U Etat-c' est-moi manner,
proved that he had small sympathy with folk who
shout " Liberty" with arms in their hands. M. de
Mercoeur proceeded to read a royal ordinance which
declared that King Louis strongly disapproved of
the citizens' violence against their lawful sovereign ;
subjects had no cause whatsoever nor any legitimate
right to revolt against their prince or to prescribe
laws to him according to their fancy; other potentates
who have a common interest in such matters cannot
tolerate so contagious an example. Moreover, if such
events had taken place in any other city whose interests
were indiftcrent to him, his Majesty would have been
unable to abstain from employing all his forces, even
in the absence of any express requisition, such as he
had now received from the pope, and as the eldest son
of the Church he would have felt bound to inflict
severe and exemplary chastisement on a seditious
people ; but considering their past affection towards
him he had endeavoured to obtain their pardon from

283

Avignon

Rome, and in the event of their repentance, amend-
ment and submission to lawful authority such pardon
would be accorded. If, however, they persisted in
their attempts to impose laws and to form in the
heart of this state a sort of republic, which recognized
no head, his Majesty, being what he is, cannot with-
hold his support from the pope's good cause. The
treaty they had extorted from Colonna must be
quashed, and the vice legate was empowered to fortify
the great portal of the palace by a fosse, four yards
deep by two yards wide, with drawbridge and palisade ;
other gates of the palace might be similarly fortified,
unless the vice-legate preferred to wall them up.

The consuls, having surrendered their cannon and
disarmed the people, the promised pardon came from
Rome, twenty-eight of the ringleaders being excluded
from the amnesty. Colonna, who had introduced
fifteen hundred men-at-arms to overawe the citizens,
celebrated his triumph by a glorious procession on
the Feast of the Purification of the Holy Virgin
(February 2, 1665). Enthroned on a chair of state
beside the High Altar of Notre Dame, and robed in
a violet stole, sat the vice-legate, while the choir
intoned the Miserere, the consuls kneeling before
him, stripped of their official robes, and in such abject
and lugubrious humiliation as to draw tears from all
beholders. The submission performed, Colonna rose,
and, to the exultant strains of the 7V Dcum, returned
to his palace amid deafening salvos of artillery ; the
tardy Christmas presents were thereupon delivered,
and on February 1 8 Colonna gave a great ball and
sumptuous collation to the noble ladies of Avignon.

The ro)al officers and troops having taken their
departure, the Italian garrison returned to their
places and the vice-legate set about his fortifications,

284

Temporary Annexation to France

to find material for which he began to demolish, on
April I 3, the tower adjoining the great chapel; on
May 18 he attacked the Tour de Trouillas for stone,
and on the 20th, seven of the exempted and fugitive
ringleaders were hanged head downwards in effigy in
front of the palace, with a placard on the gallows
setting forth their crimes ; afterwards their portraits
were exhibited inscribed with their names, M. dc
Issoirs, who was a tall, handsome man, being painted
as of gigantic height. A price of two hundred pistoles
was placed on the heads of the fugitives (who were,
however, safe enough within the realm of France),
and the house of one who had died in exile, situated
on the Rue Philonarde, was razed and a pyramid of
stone erected on the spot, setting forth its owner's
crimes. The vice-legate, too, fell into trouble with
the Grand Monarque, for on June 1 2 the royal
lieutenant clattered into the courtyard of the palace,
demanded instant interview, and handed Colonna an
ultimatum : his royal master expressed great displeasure
that the fortifications had exceeded in extent the per-
mission given by M. de MerccEur, and demanded
satisfaction within twenty-four hours. The officer
inspected the works, took an inventory of the arms
stored in the palace, forbade further degradation of
the towers, and having lodged a formal plaint against
the bastion, the half-moon and ravelin,' took his

' " Where, then, is the difterence ? " (quoth my father). " In
tlicir situations," answered my uncle Toby ; " for when a ravelin,
brother, stands before the curtain it is a ravelin ; and when a
ravelin stands before a bastion then the ravelin is not a ravelin
— it is a half-moon ; a half-moon likewise is a half-moon and no
more so long as it stands before its bastion ; but was it to
change place and get before the curtain — 'twould be no longer
a lialf-mocn ; a half-moon in that case is not a half-moon — 'tis
no more than a ravelin."

285

Avignon

departure on ihe 131I1 for Paris: later, orders came
from Rome to suspend the work, and Colonna had to
content himself with fosse and palisade.^

So pleasing an event to ecclesiastical authority as
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes could not fail
to re-echo in grateful celebration at papal Avignon, and
on Holy Trinity Sunday of 1686 the Jesuit Fathers
held high rejoicing at the extirpation of heresy by
the will of king Louis, happily reigning, who utterl}'
destroyed and wholly abolished heresy from his realms
so that the one and only true religion should hence-
forth exist in France. It was a bright June day, and
at two o'clock in the afternoon five hundred youths
issued from the Jesuit College, four by four, musket on
shoulder, hats beplumed and doublets adorned with
scarves of rich embroidery, heralded by drums and fites
and a captain, pike in hand ; these were followed b}'
two trumpeters on horseback and one hundred and
fifty young scholars of noble family, all well mounted
and richly clad, one of whom, magnificently arrayed
and glittering with precious stones, rode a superb
charger and represented the king of France. After
the mighty Louis came other youths simulating the
princes and nobles of the Court ; those who had fought
against the heretics being distinguished by their names
and escutcheon. The kings of England and of Poland
and the Duke of Savoy and others of the regal allies
were also represented. But the culminating joy was a
triumphal car drawn by six horses, richly caparisoned,
on which was seated a youth, who, tiara on head, repre-

' Foi- these events the chicl authorities are : Bib. Calvct,
MS. 2374. Sedition et emeute dam la •ville d' Awgnon le 23 octobrc
1664. Brief narrl de ce qui s'est pass^ dans la -ville d'A-vignon
depuis Pan 16^0 Jusqu'a I'ann^e 1665, tire du li-vre de ration de M.
Hierosme de Laurens auditeur de la Sacrie Rote du palais apostolique.

286

Temporary Annexation to France

sentcd the I'opc irampling on heresy — a masked youlli
clad in sable and bound in chains. The procession,
which closed with a number of gaily dressed children,
inarched about the city until nine in the evening, and
the celebration ended with an elaborate set piece of
fireworks in the similitude of an obelisk with a figure
of Louis aureoled by the sun. It was all a prodigious
success, and approved even by the most critical csprhs,
whereof there is no lack in our city.^

In 1688 the presence of a rich papal city and
county wedged in the realm of France again proved
a powerful lever in the hands of the monarchy.
Some trouble having arisen between Louis and
Innocent XI, there arrived in Avignon, on October 1,
tile royal Intendant of Provence and the king's
officers with a peremptory notice to vice-legate
Cenci to cjuit possession, who, during the night, in
dressing-gown and night-cap escaped on foot to the
Jesuit College; cries of Vive k Roi ! were again
heard in the city, cannons roared, Te Deums were
sung and fireworks blazed. For a year the royal writ
ran in Avignon and the county, until the death of
Innocent and the advent of a more pliant pontiff
healed the breach. On November i, 1689, the usual
ecclesiastical pomp attended the re-entry of tlic
evicted vice-legate, the impartial throats of cannon
welcomed him, and on Place du Palais fireworks
celebrated the resumption of theocratic government.
The papal arms were haled out of their cupboard in
the Hotel de V^ille, the royal arms pulled down and
stored for the next revolution, and the keys of Peter
were blazoned again on the papal palace and the city
gates.

^ Bib. Calvet, MS. 2374. Journal Je la 'ville d'Ai'ignon depuis
Janvier l. 1660 Jiisqu'au ^i juillet 1702.

287

CHAPTER X\'1II

THE EH;HTEENTH century at AVIGNON— the OLD AND

THE YOUNG PRETENDERS FINAL ANNEXATION TO

FRANCE

The history of Avignon during the eighteenth
century presents but few scenes of interest to the
English reader. By the terrible famine of 172 1,
when the inhabitants were reduced to half a pound
of bread a day, and by the no less devastating plague
that followed, the population, which in earlier days
had reached 50,000 souls, fell at the census of 1759
to 26,823, of whom about 4.00 were Religious and 385
Jews.i But apart from these annees terribles, it was
a city where life was pleasant and public burdens
light. To those who were content to surrender their
political and theological consciences to the paternal
care of a theocracy, the papal yoke was an easy one.
No sinister Bastille frowned darkly and menacingly
over the streets of Avignon ; her citizens groaned not
under the grinding taxation of the neighbouring
monarchy, and to heretics and Jews the easy-going
vice-legates, with their traditional Italian tolerance,
were far less severe than the kings over the Rhone :
no Calas was broken on the wheel in Avignon in the
eighteenth century. Her irresponsible, pleasure-
loving population, her noble architecture, her mild
and sunny climate, her political independence, made

1 Bib. Calvet, MS. 2393, fol. 52.

288

'The Eighteenth Century at Avignon

of Avignon a city of refuge whither flocked many an
exile and conspirator, many a rich scapegrace and
adventurer. The facile morals and social freedom that
obtained there ; the gorgeous processions and brilliant
ceremonies ; the picturesque Italian court with the
quaint parti-coloured costumes of the Swiss; the
resplendent scarlet and silver uniforms of noble
guards ; the theatres — for Moliere himself and his
troupe had played there in 1655 — lent a seductive
charm to life in Avignon, and the city became a
favourite halting-place for English travellers on the
way to make the grand tour of Europe. The exclusive
Dillettante Club, of London, whose membership was
limited to travellers that had been to Italy, decided in
1 748 that Avignon was to be regarded as Italian
soil.

Most exalted of all the political refugees that found
hospitality within the walls of Avignon during the
eighteenth century was the old Pretender, whom the
citizens welcomed as James III of England. The
mansion occupied by the commander of the papal
garrison, near St. Didier, was hastily evacuated and
prepared for his reception, and on April 2, 17 16, the
not very heroic Chevalier de St. George entered by
the Porte d'Ouille, followed by thirty-six horses, two
carriages, his plate and linen and household. The
Earl of Mar, whose futile rebellion had ended so
disastrously, the Duke of Ormond, and hundreds of
fugitive Jacobites, Scotch and English, flocked into
the city, and, to the joy of Avignon tradesmen, there
soon came the royal treasure of 80,000 gold crowns.
A list ^ of those who arrived comprises 122 persons,

1 Bib. Calvct, MS. 2827, fol. 611. Liste des Anglais de la
suite de Jacques III, roi d'Angleterre, arrivie a A-vignon en
Z a'vril, 1 7 1 6 0.

u 289

Avignon

among whom figure many of noble Scotch and English
families whose names appear to have given the papal
scribes considerable difficulty.^ Two royal physicians
and two surgeons formed part of the Jacobite court.
A separate list of forty Catholic seigneurs Anglais is
given. To the perturbation of the Holy Office at
Rome, there were also many Protestant seigneurs and
two ministers.

On May i6, by order of Clement XII, Cardinal
Albani sent to the Archbishop of Avignon full in-
structions concerning the conduct he was to observe
with regard to the heretical princes in the: suite of
the King of England. The archbishop is to take to
heart that the sojourn of these heretics be profitable
to the Catholic religion and result in their conversion,
or at least be not prejudicial to our Faith, or bring any
scandal to our people. He is therefore to be very
careful to forbid the practise of any non-Catholic
religion, and to see to it that no heretical preacher or
minister dare open a conventicle wherein the heretics
may propagate or foster their errors and false doctrines.
In familiar intercourse or conversation, Catholics must
not be forward in entering upon perilous discussions
on religious matters, for error is sometimes more easily
imbibed than truth. On the days when Holy Church
forbids the eating of flesh, Catholics and heretics are
not to sit at the same tables, for gluttony is a seductive
vice ; the heretics are to remember that they dwell in
a wholly Catholic city and country, which even in
temporal matters are subject to the high pontiff, and
that it would cause his holiness f profound grief if the
soul of any one of his faithful subjects was to be
imperilled. Lastly, the archbishop is to take every
opportunity of converting these strayed souls, sunk
' e.g., Coelbuine ; Lintisgow, etc.
290

The Old and the New Pretenders

in error, to God and to the true Faith, and to look to
it that the heretics he edified by the example of the
Catholics of his dominions, and well persuaded of the
truth of our Catholic religion, and especially may he
effect this end by employing such persons as may seem
best calculated to insinuate themselves without peril
into their familiar and social gatherings.^

Protestant and Catholic alike spent a joyous time in
Avignon, and the Chevalier de St. George divided his
attention between devotion and pleasure. Daily he
was seen at mass, either at the cathedral or his parish
church of St. Didier ; he went frequently to com-
munion and confession, and held a taper in the
penitents' procession ; a famous Lent preacher was
appointed for his edification. Apart from his religious
duties the Chevalier's sojourn was a round of gaiety
and excitement : — balls, dinners, routs, comedies,
operas in the city; receptions, dancing, ^r^W/yW/A" et
bohsons at the vice-legate's court in the palace,
where he often danced with the ladies of Avignon ;
excursions to Vaucluse — all went merry as a marriage
bell until, on September 15, the Chevalier was struck
down by a serious illness, and his queen at St. Germain
sent a famous surgeon from Paris to operate for fistula.
So concerned was the vice-legate that he forbade the
ringing of the church bells for eight days, and many
times renewed the prohibition ; but before the stricken
Pretender could rise from his couch, the Treaty of
January 4, 17 17, with France, banished him across
the Alps, and to the great sorrow of the citizens the
Chevalier was constrained to leave. On February 4.
a farewxll festa was given at the palace, where one
hundred guests sat down, and on the 6th, after
hearing mass at St. Didier, the Pretender entered his
1 Bib. Calvet, MS. 2818, fol. 26 {see Appendix II.).
U 2 291

Avignon

carriage with the Earl of Mar and the Duke ot
Ormond and bade an affecting farewell to his hosts at
Avignon.

James was not the last pretender seen in the papal
city : on February 14, 1749, ^ pastoral, entitled
" I'Asile de la Vertu," and set to music by the Sieur
du Pertuis, was performed at Avignon before " His
Royal Highness, Charles Edward, Prince of Wales."
The argument, flattering enough to the defeated of
Culloden, ran as follows : " Virtue, exiled from the
Earth since the Golden Age by the crimes of men,
took flight with Astrea to Heaven. The guilty foibles
of the gods compelled her to flee from that sojourn,
whereupon Astrea, followed by Pallas, returned to the
Earth in quest of her, the two goddesses mutually
exhorting each other to spare no efforts to bring her
back to heaven. Jove then appears and announces
that Virtue, scorning the abode of thunder, has deter-
mined to dwell for ever among men, and is raising her
temple in the breast of the Prince of Wales, whose
praises Jove sings. The father of gods and men ends
by inviting the people, who are rejoicing in the
Prince's presence among them, to celebrate a happi-
ness, whereof the very gods themselves are jealous,
with festive dance and songs." ^ Bonnie Prince Charlie
made but a brief stay at Avignon ; a hint from the
English government and the " Sanctuary of Virtue "
left for his dissolute and inglorious wanderings over
Europe.

In 1768 the solemn comedy of evicting the legate
was played for the last time by the French monarchy.
Louis the Well-Beloved, engaged in expelling the
Jesuits, grew angry at their finding refuge in Avignon,
and proceeded to occupy the papal city until 1774,
1 Bib. Calvet, MS. 2374
292

Final Annexation to France

when the monarchy had extorted what it desired
from a recalcitrant pope.

In May, 1790, the citizens of Avignon petitioned
for a reunion with France, and the Constituent
Assembly rejected the appeal, whereupon the civic
authorities forced its hand : on June i i the magis-
trates bade Philippe Casoni, sixty-first papal vice-legate
of Avignon, pack and be off, and the papal arms
were never again seen over the portal of the old
palace, although it was not until the final sitting of
the Constituent on September 14, 179 1, that the
formal annexation was decreed.^ A rising among the
peasants, fomented by the priests, having resulted in
the brutal assassination of the clerk, to the munici-
pality, whose eyes were gouged out with scissors by
a woman, the infuriated populace of the city perpe-
trated a savage and atrocious massacre in the Tour de
la Glaciere.2 gm- t]-,e ghastly details of this butchery,
as well as the fierce reaction of the White Terror in
1 8 14, may well be spared the reader. By the peace
of Tolentino, February 19, 1797, the Holy See was
forced by Napoleon formally to cede the city and
county to France, and by the Treaty of Paris (June
I 8 14) Avignon and the County Venaissin of all her
added territories were alone secured to her. The
population of the old papal city maintained their
reputation for fickleness to the last, and they, who
had welcomed the Republic and the Empire with
delirious joy, insulted the fallen emperor by hewing
his statues to pieces as he passed through their streets
on his way to exile in Elba.

The fate of the chief architectural relic of papal
times has since been a chequered one. Pillaged by
the revolutionists, it narrowly escaped total demoli-
■* Monifcur, September 15, 1791. '" See p. 219.

293

Avignon

tion, for on October i, 1792, the city council
petitioned for its destruction. Alternately, and some-
times simultaneously, serving as a barrack and a
prison, it survived, a gaping ruin, until 1822, when
the fabric was partially repaired by the War Office
for use as a permanent barrack; in 1883 further
sums were expended, and much of the palace was
remodelled for the accommodation of a corps of
Engineers. The Engineers have recently been re-
moved to a new barrack, and the palace is now under
process of restoration, its ultimate purpose being not
yet determined.

It would be unseemly to conclude the story of
Avignon without a passing reference to the renais-
sance of Proven9al poetry associated with its name ;
for it was in the Sunday gatherings of a group ot
ardent young poets and dreamers, intoxicated with
enthusiasm rather than wine, in the old papal
printing-office of Aubanel pere — a weather-worn
turreted cardinal's palace in the Rue St. Marc^ —
that the Gate-Science was re-born, and it was on a
lovely May day of the year 1854. ^" '■^^ woods of
Font Segugne, near Avignon, that it received its
baptism. Mistral has related in his memoirs how
the Pleiade of Avignon, seven poets, met in its flowery
glades — Paul Giera, with his mocking spirit ; Rou-
manille, ever kindling the sacred fire around him ;
Aubanel, his disciple, whose muse blossomed at the
sun of love ; Mathieu, wrapped in golden visions of a
Provence once again, as of yore, the home of love and
chivalry ; Brunet, with a face like Christ of Galilee,
ever dreaming of his Utopia of a Terrestrial Paradise ;
Tavan, the peasant, singing like a grasshopper on the

^ The palace has long since been demolished and the street
tenamed, Rue Aubanel.

294

Final Annexation to France

glebe, as he bent over his plough ; and Mistral, eager
to plant their victorious gonfalon on the summit of
Mont Ventoux : how that, vainly searching for a
name to consecrate the new birth, Mistral began to
recite the old country ballad of Monscgnour Sant
Anscume, to whom the Virgin told the story of
her seven dolours ; and how on reaching the fourth,

/-^Es^^,,,.

chAteauneuf dks papes

the teaching in the Temple, the line Emc R set fclibre
dc Id lei was acclaimed by the seven poets ; a bottle of
seven-year-old chateauneuf wine opened, and with
clinking glasses, the seven Fclibres of the Law found
an abiding name.^

The movement — although, perhaps, it is treason
to say so in Avignon — has, probably, little future.

1 Moun Espelido ,• Membri e Raconte, pp. 437, 453. Paris, 1906.

Avignon

Provenfal is fast disappearing as a spoken language,
and lingers only in a few remote villages ; even the
master, Mistral's, works are published in French as
well in Provenjal, and the langtie d^o'il ever pursues
its conquering course in the south. Many and bitter
are the complaints of Government apathy at the long
agony of a venerable, beautiful and expressive speech.
" C^est une chanson de V entendre parler ! " exclaimed an
indignant Avignonnais in our hearing as he deplored
the inevitable tragedy.

The poems of Mistral and his fellow felibres are
the swan-song of a dying tongue.

296

PART II— THE CITY

Section I

NOTRE DAME AND LE ROCHER DES DOMS PONT

ST. HENEZET

The traditions that cluster around the mother
church of Notre Dame des Doms, were, until the
Revolution, summed up in a Latin inscription near the
main portal, some fragments of which are still pre-
served in the Musee Calvet. The wayfarer was bidden
to learn much in few words : " That most ancient
and venerable basilica, owing to the rich stream of
gifts {donoruni) rained down from heaven, was called
Our Lady of Gifts {de don'tsf- by the piety of the
common people of Avignon ; St. Martha, hostess
of Our Lord God, founded it ; St. Rufus, son of
Simon of Cyrene," and disciple of Our Lord, who
was first bishop of Avignon, dedicated it to God in
honour of the Blessed \'irgin ere she was taken up to
heaven. The Emperor Constantine the Great enlarged
the stately edifice ; Charles Martel having avenged its
almost total destruction by the infidel Saracens, it
was restored by the munificence of the most pious
King and Emperor Charlemagne. Unbroken tradi-

^ According to a later mcdi;eval etymology doms is a corrup-
tion of domus, the bishop's dwelling-place (Ital. duomo).
2 Mark xv. 21.

297

Avignon

tion teaches that it was consecrated by the most holy
hand of Jesus Christ Himself. For seventy years
and more it was ennobled by the assiduous piety of
the High Pontiffs ; some of whom, together with
many cardinals, rest in this same basilica. Sixtus IV
changed the regular chapter into a secular chapter,
and his nephew Julius II, Pont. Max., first the
bishop and then the archbishop of Avignon, adorned
it more sumptuously and increased its revenues. The
piety of the most Christian kings rendered it illus-
trious by many privileges : Ora et vale." ^ Thus the
inscription.

Documentary and architectural evidence, however,
carry us back no further than the second half of the
eleventh century, when the church was repaired and
newly consecrated. Rebuilt ii 40-11 60, it was en-
larged and modified in later centuries until its final
restoration in i 842.

The original plan of this, as of most of the
Romanesque churches of Provence, consisted of a
single nave strongly buttressed and a semicircular
apse, the interior being lighted by an octagonal lan-
tern and dome raised over the east bay of the nave
and carried on squinch arches — a Saracenic contriv-
ance which the Provenfal masons derived from Spain :
the ground floor of the west tower formed a barrel-
vaulted narthex. The first additions were made by
Cardinal Jacques de Via in 131 5, who built the
two side chapels south of the last bay of the nave,
dedicated to the Holy Angels, and to All Saints and
the Holy Apostles : the former was wholly trans-
formed in 1842 ; the latter, for which John XXII
found the funds, was the burial-place of that pontiff
and his nephew, and still holds his mutilated sepul-
^ Musee Calvet, MS. 2392, fol. 228.
298

Notre Dame and he Rocher des Doms

chral monument. At a later period a third chapel
was added (on the north side) in memory of Cardinal
de Brancas, and in process of time the whole of the
spaces between the buttresses on the north and south
were filled with chapels.

In 1672 the apse was rebuilt and lengthened to its
present form, and Pierre Peru and Paul Brunei,
masons, contracted to build the ornate renaissance
galleries and tribunes that now flank the old nave.
The last modification of any importance before the
iconoclasts of the Revolution looted the cathedral, was
the rebuilding (l 677-1 682) of the third chapel on
the south in a circular form, which then was deemed
the fairest chapel in the basilica.

The traveller who stands before the porch of Notre
Dame des Doms, with its Corinthian columns and
round arch, will be struck, as Prosper Mcrimee was,
by the classicism of the architecture, and be perhaps
tempted, as some authorities have been, to ascribe it
to Roman masons. There can be little doubt, how-
ever, that it was raised during, or soon after,
the rebuilding in the twelfth century — perhaps to
strengthen the tower — and its Corinthian archi-
tecture is but a clever imitation by Provencal masons
of classic remains in the south of Gaul, such as the
arch of Orange. During Simone Mcmmi's sojourn
in Avignon that famous artist decorated the porch with
noble frescoes that unhappily have wholly perished :
that on the south wall, St. George and the Dragon, so
thrilled Francis I with admiration that he could not
tear himself away : the kneeling princess in green was
reported to have been a portrait of Laura. The
frescoes had almost disappeared in 1818, and when
Mcrimee made his tour of inspection in 1834 no
vestige was to be seen of this painting, which, he says,

299

Avignon

used to be shown a few years since in the passage
leading from the porch to the nave of Notre Dame
des Doms." ^ Faint traces remain of the Memmi
frescoes on the pediment and tympanum of the inner
portal : the Salvator Mundi and tw^o angels on the
former ; Cardinal Ceccano at the Virgin's feet on the
latter. Judging by the water-colour copy made by
Chaix about 1845, and now in the Musee Calvet,"
these once beautiful paintings have been allowed to
suffer a lamentable deterioration since that period. ^

Few relics remain of the inestimable art treasures
of pre-revolutionary days : on the left in the narthex
is a fifteenth-century fresco of no merit, but interest-
ing as a study of costume — Carlo Spiefami, with his
wife Margaret and their children, kneeling before a
representation of the Baptism of Christ ; tw^o angels
are holding a cloth to wipe the Saviour's body. In
the first chapel to the left may be seen an old
romanesque altar, supported by five columns, said to
have been the altar used by the Avignon popes and
formerly richly decorated with silver and gold : in the
opposite chapel to the right stands another old altar
with four Corinthian pilasters and a sculptured frieze.
The second, a double chapel to the left, elaborately
frescoed by the modern painter Eugene Deveria
(l 805-1 865), contains, under a Gothic canopy, an
incongruous fabrication of the first half of the nine-
teenth century, styled the tomb of Benedict XII.
The once beautiful monument of the great reforming
pope by Jean de Paris had already in 1689 fallen into

^ Notes d'utt Voyage dam k Midi de la France, 1835, pp. 138-
139.

- No. 690.

^ It is now (191 1) proposed to restore them, as well as the
Deveria frescoes.

300

Notre Dame and he Roc her des Doms

such a state of neglect that the canons of the cathe-
dral decided to demolish it, and spared only the
figure of the pope in marble and the base. In 1732
It was described as affatto rovbmio, and the chapter
then had a new base made for the recumbent statue :
in 1765, at the instance of the Tailors' Guild, in
whose chapel it then stood, the monument was re-

OLD TAPAL THRONE

moved to give place to the tomb of a popular master-
tailor of Avignon.

The base of the tomb now exposed to view is that
of Cardinal Jean de Cros, and the statue of Benedict,
the work of a nineteenth-century sculptor : all that
remained of the Gothic tomb, for which Master Jehan
Lavernier, ymaginator, alias dicto de Paris, was paid
650 florins in 1342, was broken to shivers at the
Revolution.

The relic of the beautiful monument to John XXII,
a less equivocal structure, may be seen in the old

301

Avignon

chapel built by John and his nephew, now used as
the vestibule of the sacristy. Described in 1732 as
nearly a ruin, it was grievously mutilated during the
Revolution, and the original effigy has been replaced
by that of a mitred bishop ; nothing definite is known
of the sixty statuettes in marble that once adorned
the tomb, but enough remains of this masterpiece of
Gothic monumental sculpture to enable the traveller
to form some conception of its former manifold and
majestic beauty : it has been twice restored — in 1825
and 1840.

Another salvage of revolutionary wreckage is the
old papal chair, or throne, in white marble, decorated
with carvings of the lion of St. Mark and the ox of
St. Luke, which stands in the choir to the left of the
high altar. Of the one hundred and fifty cardinals,
prelates and legates buried in this church the monu-
ments of but two remain in the third chapel to
the left— that of the heroic vice-legate Domenico
Grimaldi (i 585-1592), whom we have seen a mili-
tant son of Holy Church in the Huguenot wars;
and that of vice-legate Marini, who died in 1699.

The cathedral, in common with many of the
Avignonnais churches, is rich in examples of seven-
teenth-century paintings by Levieux, Pierre Parrocel,
Pierre and Nicholas Mignard, all of whom have helped
to adorn the various chapels : a fine statue, St. Peter
Repentant, by Puget, stands in the charming little
seventeenth-century chapel already referred to. But
this historic and venerable temple, wherein popes
were celebrants and kings and holy Roman emperors
worshippers, has to-day a sadly bare and chill aspect,
and with difficulty can the modern pilgrim people
its empty nave with the magnificence and splendour
of papal times. The beautiful cloisters and chapter-

302

Notre Dame a?jd Le Roc her des Doms

house that stood at the east of tlie cathedral, with
their exquisite sculptures in marble, were shattered
at the Revolution. The colossal gilt statue of lead,
representing the Virgin, that crowns the tower, was
raised in 1859.

As we stand on the platform before the porch, to

Ml J,

HOUSE OF THR PAINTER MIGNARD, AVIGNON

our left looms the great fortress-palace of the popes,
resembling, says Merimce, the citadel of an Asiatic
tyrant rather than the dwelling of the Vicar of the
God of Peace ; to our right, the episcopal palace,^
with its embattlcmented summit, as reconstructed by
Giuliano della Rovcre : this, the Petit Palais which
formerly served as a Catholic seminary, has been devoted
1 See p. 265.

303

Avignon

to educational purposes since the separation of Church
and State in France. Opposite, to the left, is the
former mint, a ponderous late Renaissance structure,
of legatial times, its fa9ade decorated with the
Borghese arms, whose design has been libellously
attributed to Michael Angelo ; and in the background
is the ruined tower whence the besiegers directed
their artillery on the palace during the siege of

HOTEL DES MONNAIS, AVIGNON

Benedict XIII. The statue of the Brave Crillon,
beloved lieutenant of Henry of Navarre, which once
stood before the Hotel de Ville, now rises forgotten
and solitary in the Place du Palais. In papal days an
avenue of trees led from the Grand to the Petit
Palais : but the place that once saw the solemn and
magnificent pageantry of popes and emperors, kings
and legates, is now deserted, melancholy, neglected ;

304

Notre Dame and Le Rocher des Doms

save when a travelling circus pitches its tents there
and affords the city a week of delirious joy.

But a scene of incomparable beauty awaits us at the
end of the shady walk that rises from the platform to
the modern Promenade du Rocher des Doms. This,
once the barren, wind-swept acropolis of Avignon
which was crowned in papal times with the wind-
mills and the forts. Qui quen park and Qui qucn grogne,
and which in floodtime served as a cemetery, has
been transformed into a delightful garden — a minia-
ture Pincian — with many a sheltered nook to sit and
dream in. The rubbish left by the housebreakers,
when the new Rue de la Republique was ploughed
through the city, having been carted up to the Rocher
and mingled with the alluvial deposit from the banks
of the Rhone, formed an admirable soil, which was
laid out and planted with shrubs and trees. The
work was pushed rapidly forward, and shortly after
the Crimean War, Marshal Canrobert was able to
plant the fine oak tree that still flourishes, and dedicate
the little park to the citizens of Avignon. The view
from the Belvedere over the Rhone and four depart-
ments of France is remarkable both for range and
beauty. At our feet sweeps the broad majestic Rhone,
hasting seaward per aver pace co" seguaci sui, and
embracing in its course the great island of la Barthe-
lasse with the remaining arches of the bridge, and
the chapel of St. Nicholas; opposite are the hills and
mountains of Langucdoc, their nearer slopes, above
poor dilapidated Villeneuvc, fallen from her ancient
splendour, covered with the summer villas of rich
Avignonnais ; the tower of Philip the Fair ; the
stupendous twin bastions of St. Andre ; the gaping
ruins of the Charterhouse of the Vale of Benediction :
far in the background stands the square tower of

X 305

Avignon

Chateauneuf des Papes. We follow the sinuous course
of the Rhone, bordering the fertile plains of the
County Venaissin, now the Department de Vaucluse,
smallest but richest of the divisions of France, with
its many towns and villages, irrigated by the lesser
waters of the Sorgue, the Auson, and the Nesque.
Our view is bounded by the long, massy dome of
Mount Ventoux — a solitary, advanced sentinel of
the Alps of Dauphine, raising his giant head 6000
feet above the plain ; farther to the right the sombre
wall of rock, at whose feet springs the fount of
Vaucluse : to the left is the new suspension bridge
and its stone prolongation beyond the isle of la Bar-
thelasse, striding to the shore of Languedoc, over
which rises precipitously the Rocher de la Justice : the
small iron strategic bridge lower down is used for
military purposes only. To our left also, a line of
poplars marks the winding course of the Durance.
The view to the south is masked by the Cathedral
and the agglomerated mass of the Palace. If, there-
fore, we would embrace the whole circle of the
horizon we must ascend the Cathedral tower, or the
Tour de la Campane, and should the traveller fortune
to enjoy the view on a clear spring morning or
evening, when the Mount of the Winds is draped
in his glittering mantle of snow, and the accidented
peaks of the Alps stand forth sharp and clear in the
brilliant and diaphonous air of Provence, he will carry
away with him an ineffaceable impression of a scene
of beauty, which may indeed be equalled but cannot
be surpassed in Europe.

Descending the stately stairway that leads to the
foot of the Rocher des Doms, and turning to the left,
we soon reach the house of the gardienne du pout, who
will admit us to all that remains of the miraculous

306

Pont St. Benezet

pontifical structure of the twelfth century. The
destructive hand of man and the assaults of the Rhone
— impatiens pont'is — have dealt hardly with St. Bcne-
zet's work. Ruined during the siege of 1226, it
was repaired in 1234-37, and in 1349 knit to
the papal fortress at the Avignon end. In 1352,
when Clement VI rebuilt four of the arches, it is
described as of stone and wood ; ^ it was cut during
the siege of Benedict XIII, and repaired, or rebuilt,
in 1418 and 1430; in 1602 three arches collapsed;
in 1633 two more fell, and in 1650 the gaps were
bridged by wooden struts and planks, which were
carried away in 1670 by ice-floes. Owing to the
interminable dispute between the monarchy and the
papacy as to liability for its repair, each power
claiming jurisdiction over the Rhone, all attempts
to preserve it from ruin were abandoned in 1680,
when Louis XIV refused either to allow the legates
to take toll for the necessary repairs, or to undertake
them himself.

Little is known of the original bridge, which
consisted of twenty-two semicircular arches (Viollet-
le-Duc gives eighteen), much lower than the present
elliptic ones, which date back to the thirteenth cen-
tury, according to Labaude — or to the fifteenth cen-
tury, according to other authorities — when the bridge,
having proved too low-pitched, was raised to its
present level, and the flood arches over the piles
were built. The four subsisting arches were, with
the bridge chapel, restored during the last century.
The old bridge formed an elbow upstream on the
Villeneuve branch of the Rhone. The chapel of
St. Nicholas, too, has suffered many vicissitudes. The

' Baluze, Vol. I. p. 278 : Pontem insuper lapidem et Ugnorum per
quern in regnum Francius pertransitur.

X 2 307

Avignon

primitive Romanesque building was raised to the level
of the new footway by dividing the nave into two
floors and building a flight of steps, supported on a
squinch arch, down to what then became the lower
chapel. Much battered during the sieges of the
palace, it was restored and reconsecrated in 141 1,
and a century later the Gothic upper apse was added,
whose external walls overtop the old nave. In
consequence of these modifications the lower chapel
has a Gothic nave and a Romanesque apse, whereas
the upper chapel has a Gothic apse and a Romanesque
nave

The Pont d' Avignon is known to every French-
speaking child, and with many variants the old
ronde —

AlUgrtUo.

;fe=$EESE|E£E£z^

;:z«dz^!EzE:i!-|=ti-r,<-F -f-3

F

fe3=

=it=*=il:

EJ^Ei

i=^=1-q

IL Adagio.

fc^|=E|^§5=3ER^:^3ffl

Et puis en • cor Coram' JA.

308

The Papal Palace

is sung and danced from the remotest plains of
Canada to the valleys of the Swiss Alps. The good
folk of Avignon, however, protest that their rondes
were not danced perilously on the narrow Pont St.
Benezet, but under its arches on the green meadows
of the Isle de la Barthclassc, and that Sur in lieu of
Sous is due to northern misunderstanding of their
sweet Provencal tongue.

The love of music has ever been a distinguishing
mark of the Provenfal folk, and may it not be that
the grasshopper, adopted as the emblem of Provence,
has some relation to this historic trait, and has come
down from Greek times ? We are told that it was
the custom of the Greeks, within the memory of
Thucydidcs at least, to wear a golden grasshopper in
the hair, much as women wear a pin or clasp to-day,
as an emblem of Music, " for when Terpander was
playing the lyre in a musical contest at Sparta, and
one of his strings snapt, and there seemed a danger
of his losing the prize in consequence, the story goes
that a grasshopper came and perched itself in the
place of the broken string, and filled up the vacant
note with its warbling : so the grasshopper passed
into a pretty emblem of Music." ^

Section II

THE PAPAL PALACE

The amplitude of the towering mass of architecture
which forms the papal palace will be best appreciated
by a preliminary stroll round such portions as may be
seen from the public streets. Standing on the Place
du Palais, the irregular west fa9ade is bounded on

^ RowBOTHAM : History of Music, Vol. II. p. 467.

309

Avignon

the north by the restored Tour de la Campane,
adjacent to which are, according to M. Digonnet,
some remains of the old episcopal palace, the traces
of a projecting cornice just above the windows of the
first floor indicating the elevation of the original
building, ^ which was enlarged by John XXII ;
traces of the cornice of the second floor, with
two-light windows, added by him being visible
behind Benedict's later machicoulis and battlements.
Clement VI's arms still remain over the principal
entrance, at each end of which the corbels of the two
flanking turrets, demolished in 1770, may be seen.
They are portrayed in an eighteenth-century painting
i n the Musee Calvet,- which also shows Colonna's
advanced works that defended the access to the portal.
The two-light window above the entrance is one of
those that gave on the chambers of the lords of the
treasury. Pursuing our way southwards, we pass
the truncated Tour de la Gache and the beautiful
lancet windows, now happily restored, of Clement
VI's great chapel and Hall of Justice, and turn the
corner of the Rue de la Peyrolerie, where we are
confronted by an unsolved architectural enigma —
some salient masonry, with traces of groining and a
carved corbel. Does this imply the existence of an
adjacent chamber supported on a vaulted buttress and
subsequently demolished, or is it merely the toothing
of a projected extension of the palace southwards ?
Curiously enough, while the documents published by
Ehrle and Muntz have thrown light on so many
details of construction, nothing has yet been dis-
covered that affords any clue to a solution of this
problem. M. Digonnet has essayed to defend his, the
former hypothesis, by the analogy of a similar archi-
1 See p. 60. 2 See p_ ^y^.

310

l^he Papal Palace

tectural feature in the fifteenth-century porch of the
cathedral of MontpelHer due to an Avignonnais archi-
tect and by the signs of demolition which the masonry
shows, and which he believes cannot be explained
on the latter theory. All this is, however, pure
speculation, and the fractured aspect of the projecting
stones may well be due to five and a half centuries of
degradation of the toothing by weather. Only a few
years since a stone fell leaving a ragged end visible.
The buttress erected in 1357 is passed as we descend
the Rue Peyroleric.

Continuing our way eastwards we soon reach the
massive buttressed Tour de St. Laurent (or Vestry
Tower), and as we turn into the Place la Mirande
we may perceive in this tower traces of legatial
modification — a Renaissance window inserted in the
frame of a Gothic window. From the Place Mirande
may also be seen the old Porte de la Peyrolerie, now
blocked, which gave access to the palace from the
south-east. Descending the Rue du Vice Legat we
reach the Tour de la Garde Robe, the Tour des Anges,
and the remains of Benedict XII's original walls,
with their machicoulis, which still exist on both sides
of the rampart. The east fa9ade of the palace is
almost wholly concealed by the houses on the left of the
Rue de la Banasterie (" Street of the Basketmakers ") ;
but if we pass on and ascenci the Rue du Four on
our right we shall gain an excellent view of the great
Tour de Trouillas, the Tour de la Glaci^re, and the
Grande Cuisine, with its funnel-shaped chimney,
which official guides have described to thousands of
credulous visitors as the vent of the torture-chamber
of the Inquisition, where the irons were heated, and
whence issued the shrieks of its victims. We may,
however, well pardon ill-informed ciceroni, when

3"

Avignon

we remember that Prosper Merimee, who surveyed
the palace in September 1834, as Inspector-General
of Historic Monuments, refers to a stove in this
chamber " where the instruments of torture were
heated," and describes a horrible contrivance (the
veille) in use there ; ^ or when a grave historian of
Avignon informs his readers that the unhappy wretches
who were to perish by the flames were taken there,
and that the vaulting, shaped like a sugar-loaf,
was still imprinted with the smoke that came from
burning corpses.- Even J. A. Symonds repeats the
tradition of this torture-chamber " funnel-shaped to
drown and suffocate the shrieks of wretches on the
rack," 3 No more atrocious roastings ever took place
within this necessary domestic structure than those of
joints of good Proven9al beef and mutton, or fat
geese and capons for the pontifical tables.

Returning to the Rue de la Banasterie, we make
our way up the Rue de I'Escalier de Ste. Anne, and
enter the barrack-yard on our left where we may
gain a nearer view of the group of towers already
referred to, with the Tour de St. Jean in the distance
projecting into the old palace gardens. As we ascend
the Escalier Ste. Anne, admirable views of the city
are disclosed with its remaining towers and churches
and greyish-brown, low-pitched roofs, so Spanish in
aspect. Skirting the cathedral, we descend from the
platform past the walled-up and partially concealed
old Porte Notre Dame,'^ and reach again the main
portal.

^ Voyage dam le Midi, p. 145.

^ Grosiean : Pricis historique sur la ■uille d'yl-vignon et le
palais apostolique. Avignon, 1842.

' Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe, Vol. II. pp. 311, 312.
* See p. 225.

Avignon

We may now enter the vestibule, with the arms
of Clement VI on the groining ; take our tickets
(50 centimes) of the concierge on the right, and
proceed to visit such portions of the palace as are
shown by the official guides.^ Crossing the Court of
Honour, the inner facade of which, behind us, contains
many features of the old palace, we are led to the
vast Hall of Justice {Salle cT Audience). This beautiful
and harmonious chamber — so debased by military
occupation, but now under process of restoration — has
a double nave, whose vaulting is supported by five
massive clustered columns, and divided into six double
bays, the easternmost of which is somewhat larger in
span, for there sate the Auditeurs de la Rote, supreme
Tribunal of Christendom." It was frescoed by order
of Clement VI, who, his biographer informs us, con-
sidering that the place was to be exclusively dedicated
to the rendering of justice, desired that his painter
should follow the order which his holiness himself
had determined : To wit, in the centre, the Divine
Majesty was to be represented on His throne sur-
rounded with figures of those saints, and others, who
in the Old and New Testaments had uttered or
written noteworthy things on Judgment, Law, Justice,
Righteousness, or Truth ; and beneath each figure,
or on scrolls held in their hands, their sayings or
writings on the above subjects were to be inscribed
in very large and easily legible letters, and the books
and chapters wherein such sayings or writings are
contained were to be specified in red characters ; so
that all persons who beheld and read these sayings

^ The visitor, unless he adopts a policy of passive resistance,
will be hustled through at a speed that utterly precludes any
adequate survey of the chambers.

^ See p. 224.

3H

The Papa! Palace

might greatly profit thereby, and observe them faith-
fully and depart not from them.^ Of these frescoes,
long attributed to Simone Memmi,- and certainly
executed by his school, a few figures remain in a fair
state of preservation in the vaultings of the north
bay.

In the left section, at the apex : Hannah, mother
of Samuel ; above her, reading left to right, Malachi
and Habakkuk ; above these, Obadiah, Micah and
Nahum ; and, at the top, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah
and Moses. In the right section, apex, a sibyl ; and
reading upwards, Zcphaniah and Joel ; Daniel,
Hosea and Amos ; Enoch, Job, Solomon and David.
The appropriate verses, cited from the Vulgate, may
still be seen on the scrolls. Of the Last Judgment,
painted below the prophets, and the Crucifixion,
between the east windows, such faint outlines as are
visible have recently been picked out in red, and it
is sad to reflect that as late as 1 8 1 8 the beautiful
frescoes were in good preservation, for a visitor who
saw them in that year has described them in a provin-
cial paper :^ in the Crucifixion, Christ on the Cross,
St. John and the Magdalen were the chief figures;
two angels with outstretched arms appeared to support

^ Baluze, Vol. I. pp. 261, 262.

^ By Crowe and Cavalcasf.lle : New History of Painting,Yo\.
II. p. 92, first edition of 1864: in the edition of 1908, edited by
Langton Douglas, the authors modify their former attribution,
and suggest that Simone had the ordering and design of the
decoration of which the completion was due to others (Vol. II.
p. 62). It is doubtful, however, if even this qualified attribu-
tion can be maintained. The foundations of the hall were, as
we have seen (p. 223), only begun in the year of Simone's
death (July 1344), and the vaulting was not completed until
more than three years later. See Ehrle, p. 61, under date
November 7, 1 347 : implcnJo crotas -volte audientie no've,

^ Digonnet, pp. 225-227.

Avignon

the cross ; behind the beloved disciples and the
Magdalen stood St. George and St. Jerome, St.
Ambrose and St. Augustine. The writer dwells on
the masterly composition ; the expressive features and
the graceful pose of the various figures. The Last
Judgement, divided into five scenes, extended over
the whole breadth of the wall of the north bay and
it measured about thirty by twenty feet. The picture
was a masterpiece ; among the innumerable figures the
features of the angels and female saints were of admir-
able beauty and recalled the loveliest of Raphael's
heads. There is also a Last Judgment referred to
by Merimee and seen by him in a chapel he terms
the Tribunal of the Inquisition, later the papal
arsenal — a composition he describes as never having
been surpassed by modern art and containing heads
so exquisite as to approach the work of Raphael.^

There is no doubt, however, as to the fate of
these priceless frescoes in the Salle d'Audience. In
1829 the Commissioners of the Antiquities of
Vaucluse appealed to the military authorities to
watch over their preservation ; whereupon the Com-
mandant of the Engineers replied that he did not
share the commissioners' views with regard to the
frescoes ; they were of little artistic interest and not
worth preserving : in fact they were not consonant
with the spirit of a military establishment.^ Scant
remains are seen of the sculptural decorations. On
the bosses of the vaulting of the bays of the Tribunal
are the arms of Clement VI and of the Roman Senate
and people, and on the corbels of the vaulting on the
north and south walls are carved quaint decorative
subjects which will be familiar to the experienced

^ Notes d'un Voyage dans le Midi, p. 147.
2 Digonnet, pp. 228-233.

316

l^he Papal Palace

traveller. Before leaving we may observe, to the left
of the portal, remains of frescoes of St. Christopher
and of the V'irgin and Child.

The ample stairway which leads to the upper
chapel was restored, as an inscription tells, by
Vice-Legate Lascaris ^ in 1659. The chapel is one
of the most harmonious and beautiful examples of
ecclesiastical Gothic in France, and is composed of a
single nave and a square apse, with groined vaultings,
and clustered columns engaged in the walls. The tall,
stately, lancet windows, barbarously subdivided into
three superposed square windows to light the three
floors into which the military authorities had divided
the chapel, are now (191 1) in process of removal
and are being restored to their primitive beauty.
All that remains of the magnificent altar, carved
in 1354,- '* ^^ mutilated table now (191 1) shown
in the centre of the chapel, supporting a model of the
palace as it stood in 1450, In the

Tour de la Garde-Robe,

which is usually shown next, are some interesting four-
teenth-century frescoes, recently exposed by removal of
the whitewash on the walls of a chamber on the third
floor beneath the old chapel of St. Michael. They
portray scenes of rural life and are executed with much
charm so far as their present state of cleaning and par-
tial restoration permits one to judge. On the north
wall is a pleasant garden with fishpond, ducks and
swans, and a cowled figure with attendants fishing with
a net : on the south wall, cut by a recessed window,
is a group of naiads disturbed while bathing by ap-
proaching hunters ; to the right a hunter holds a ferret,

^ See p. 279. - See p. 224.

Avignon

and rabbits are seen scampering to their burrows. On
the east wall are two scenes, divided by a window :
the Fruit Harvest and a Hawking Party. On the
west wall is a boar hunt mutilated by a chimney-
piece which was erected in later years by a vice-
legate contemptuous of primitive art. The visitor
is usually next conducted to the

Tour des Anges

and shown the bed-chamber of Benedict XII and
his successors ; then, through the private apartments
of the popes and the great dining-hall over the
Consistory to the

Tour Sf. Jean

with the upper and lower chapels dedicated respectively
to St. Martial and St. John the Baptist. The
decorations of the chapel of St. Martial, for which
Matteo di Viterbo^ and his assistants were responsible,
are fairly well preserved : they illustrate incidents in
the legend of the patron saint who was the first
bishop of Limoges, ^ for whom Clement VI, a
Limousin by birth, had a special devotion. The
composition is somewhat crowded, but names of
persons and places are freely inscribed and the
sequence of the legend is marked aphabetically.
Vaulting. A. Conversion and Baptism of St. Martial.
The young Martial, with his parents, Martial and
Elizabeth, is listening to Christ's preaching ^ : below,

^ See p. 233.

^ Golden Legend, " Life of St. Martial " : Acta Sanctorum, De
Sancto Martiale : die trigesirna Junii.

^ According to the Golden Legend, Martial was one of the
children whom the Saviour took into his arms and blessed. —
(Mark x. 16.)

The Papal Palace

St. Peter baptizing the convert. B. The laying on
of Hands. Christ, seated in the midst of His disciples,
lays His hands on the kneeling St. Martial, who has
abandoned his parents and put himself in the company
as one of the disciples : below, a man fishing, symbolizes
the call to be fishers of men. C The saint is sent
from Rome by St. Peter at God's command to preach
the gospel in Gaul. Two scenes, (i) The Lord ap-
pears to St. Peter at Rome, (ii) Peter transmits the
divine command to the weeping saint and comforts
him. The curious architecture is worth attention.
D. Resurrection of one of the saint's two companions,
St. Austriclinian, who had died on the way. The saint
having returned to Rome receives from St. Peter the
staff which is to restore his companion to life ; note the
embattlemented eternal city : St. Austriclinian is re-
stored to life by a touch of St. Peter's staff. E. Casting
out of a devil from Count Arnold's daughter at the
castle of Tulle in Guienne. The saint (accompanied by
his companions Alpinian and Austriclinian) conjures
the devil, in the name of Jesus Christ, to issue out of
the maid's body : below, the devil flees away in the
form of a little black animal. The name of the city
and castle with the Ghibellinc battlements is incribed
over its position in the fresco. F. The same city.
Raising of Prince Nerva's daughter, who had been
suffocated by a fiend. Nerva, cousin to the Emperor
Nero, with the princess his wife, bring their dead
child to St. Martial, who restores her to them alive
and well, whereupon the whole city is converted and
baptized. G. At Agen. The destruction of idols.
The saint destroys the idols of the false religion.
The priests of the idols, having beaten the saint, are
smitten with blindness, and at his intercession their
sight is restored. The devil, in the form of a black-

319

Avignon

bearded monster with bat-like wings, is driven forth
by angels. H. Also at Agen. Christ appears to the
kneeling St. Martial and bids him go to Limoges.

Walls of the Chapel. North wall: upper
series. /. The saint at Limoges. Two scenes. He
is received into the house of the matron Susanna and
her daughter Valerienne, and heals their servant who
was poisoned. Having denounced the idolaters, he
is flung into prison by their priests : an earthquake
looses his bonds. The pagan priests are struck dead,
whereupon the saint restores them to life, and the
whole people (22,000, says the legend) are converted
and baptized. East wall. No letter. Martyrdom
of St. Valerienne. Much damaged. Some knights
in chain armour in the embrasure are well preserved.
L. The young virgin, having refused to consent to
the desire of the lord Steven, is beheaded, and the
squire who did his lord's bidding is struck dead.
St. Martial restores the squire to life. South wall.
M. Steven, " lord of all Provence from the river o
Rhone unto the sea," is summoned to Rome by Nero,
where he is converted by St. Peter's preaching, and
offers 200 pieces of gold, which Nero had given him,
to St. Peter to build churches. The scene is almost
effaced, but groups of seated men and women are
visible in the embrasure. A'^. The Earl of Poictiers's
son is raised to life, whom the devil had bound
with a chain of iron and drowned while bathing.
The name of the river Vigenna (or Vienne) is
inscribed, and the earl and countess with their kins-
folk are present at the miracle. Over the window
the fiend " more black than coal " is seen in flight,
carrying the chain with him. O. Above the door.
Three scenes. To the left, the lord Steven, seated
under a portico, orders the destruction of the pagan

320

The Papal Palace

idols. His commands .ire excculod by a man with
an axe. In the middle panel, Count Siegbert, cured
of the palsy at Bordeaux. The Countess Benedicta
is seen at the foot of the bed touching her lord with
St. Martial's staff": Siegbert, made whole, raises his
clasped hands to heaven. To the right. The
miracle of the fire at Bordeaux. Benedicta, from her
palace window, holds forth St. Martial's staff over
the burning city, and the fire is quenched. P. The
vision of St. Martial. The Lord appears to the
saint and bids him raise a church to Saints Peter and
Paul at Poictiers, who are being martyred at Rome.
St. Martial is seen kneeling at the feet of Christ,
who points towards the double martyrdom — St. Peter
crucified head downwards and St. Paul beheaded.
Above the fortified cit}' the souls of the martyred
apostles, borne by angels, are received into heaven.
0. Lower series : North wall. Ordination of St.
Aurclian. The scene is placed in the choir of the
church, founded at Poictiers by St. Martial : the
canons are in their places, and spectators look over
the back of the choir stalls. St. Martial is enthroned
in the apse, and the mitred St. Aurelian kneels
before him to receive the staff. The fresco is much in-
jured. The Twelve Churches founded by St Martial,
in his travels on foot over Gaul, is a curious, over-
crowded composition, but the architectural details
are remarkable. The locality and patron saint of
each church is inscribed. East wall. Christ an-
nounces to the kneeling saint his approaching death.
Death of St. Martial. This scene is laid in St.
Stephen's church at Bordeaux : two angels are bear-
ing away the saint's soul to heaven, in the form of a
miniature bishop, while Christ, the Virgin Mary
and the saints press forward to receive it. South

Y 3«i

Avignon

wall. Burial of St. Martial and healing of the
palsied. One, sick of the palsy, having touched the
saint's coffin as it was borne to its resting-place, is
miraculously healed. The fresco is much injured,
but the figure of the palsied, who has flung away
his crutches, and the head of one of the onlookers,
are well preserved. Miracle of the winding-sheet.
St. Alpinian heals many rich folk with the saints'
winding-sheet. This fresco is almost wholly effaced.

Chapel of St. Jo/in the Baptist

We now reach the finest and most important of
the palace frescoes, whose author, despite many re-
searches in the papal archives, remains unknown.
In the first edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle they
were confidently assigned to Simone Memmi ^ to
whose judgment Mr. Behrenson added the weight ot
his name. In the second edition, however, the
authors of the History of Painting in Italy refer the
frescoes to the school of Memmi and to the same
hand that drew the prophets in the Hall of Audience,
but excluding Matteo di Giovanetti's less expert hand.

Unhappily many of the finest heads have dis-
appeared.- In 1816 a Corsican regiment being
quartered in the palace, some of the soldiers (who as
Italians knew the value to collectors of the St. Jean
frescoes) began the exploitation of the neglected
chapel and established a lucrative industry in the

^ "No doubt can exist as to the painter of these frescoes.
Here laboured the same Simone," etc. — History of Painting in
Italy, 186+, Vol. II. p. 96.

^ When the writer last saw these frescoes (1910) a scaffolding
had been erected beneath the vaulting, and he was informed a
monsieur from the Beaux-Arts at Paris was coming to deal
with them.

322

The Papal Palace

corps. Special tools were fashioned for the work ;
the men became experts in the art of detaching the
thin layer of plaster whereon the heads were painted,
which they sold to amateurs and dealers.^

Vaulting. Each of the bays in the groined ceiling
is decorated with two figures, named and bearing
appropriate inscriptions in Latin. North. St. John
the Baptist in a raiment of camel's hair and wearing
a leathern girdle, with the inscription : - Even nozo the
axe IS laid unto the root of the tree ; St. Elizabeth,
" soft, but somewhat feeble, in a flowery meadow
holding up her dress with her hand." '^ East. St.
Zacharias, inscription : Blessed be the Loi'd God of Israel,
for he hath visited and lorought redemption for his people ;
and St. Mary. Both heads have been cut out of the
vaulting by the Corsican soldiers. South. St. Anne,
" a well-preserved soft-featured saint in a landscape
enlivened with a stream issuing from a spout"; St.
Zebcdee (head gone) with his nets. "West. St. Mary
Salome (the feet and lower part of the dress alone
remain) ; St. John the Evangelist with the inscription :
In the beginning zvas the IVord.

Walls. East. Zacharias offering incense (head
removed) : opposite is the angel announcing the
birth of a child to be called John. Left of window.
The birth of the Baptist. " St. Elizabeth, youthful
and handsome, sits up in a square bed ; in front to
the right a woman of grand presence and fine profile
holds the infant." The seated St. Zacharias, to
whom the nurse presents the new-born babe, has
the partially effaced inscription : Thou shalt call his

^ Notes d'uti "voyage dous le Midi, p. 148.

2 We give the English equivalents for the convenience of the
traveller.

" The descriptive quotations are from Crowe and Cavalcasellc.

Y 2 323

Avignon

name John. In the embrasure of the window on
either side are groups of men and women {the multi-
tude of the people") in varied costumes of the fourteenth
century. Two female figures in the foreground arrest
the attention — one with a red dress, her hands crossed
before her ; another in a close-fitting blue cloak with
a hood of the same colour tightly buttoned under the
chin and down the neck. This latter figure has been
variously identified with Joan of Naples and the
inevitable Laura.

Below are St. John preaching in the desert (much
injured) — the red dress is a modern addition — and
Christ in the garden. " The Saviour, erect and
gentle rather than majestic, faces a recess in which
vestiges of trees only remain, and seems in the act
of speaking. Two angels stand behind Him, the
nearest pointing across his breast to the Redeemer,
conspicuous by his long thin shape and close draperies
and remarkable for the crisp button curls of his hair ;
the farthest in profile shrugging his shoulders and
bowing with protruding elbows in the aftected attitude
of a dancing-master ; while the first of these former
may be seen repeated in the Sienese school up to
Taddeo Bartoli, the second is one of the pure bits
of afi^ectation peculiar to Simone." The treatment
of the hair is traditional and based on the famous
forged letter of Lentulus to the Roman Senate which
describes in detail the personal appearance of the
Saviour.^ North. Above. The Baptism of Christ.
Left. The Holy Ghost descends in the form of a
dove on the kneeling Saviour, while the Father is
seen blessing Him. Farther to the left the kneeling
St, John baptizes the Saviour. Inscription : This is

' Lecky : History of Rationalism (new ed. 1910), Vol. I.
p. 235, note.

32 +

The Papiil Piildce

my beloved Sou, in zcliom I am zccll pleased. In the
recess of the window, groups of men and women are
looking on the next scene : The Baptist preaching in
the wilderness. Inscription: The voice of ove crying in
the zvilderness. Prepare ye the zcay of the Lord, etc. One
of a group of priests and Levites holds an inscription,
H^ho art thou ? Art thou Elijah ? Art thou the prophet ?
What safest thou of thyself ? Why then baptizeth thou,
if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, nor the Prophet ?
Below. Left. Dance of Salome. Salome is " throwing
her figure and head back and timing her steps with
the jerky motion of her hands, of which the palms
are all but folded on the wrist. Salome is one of
the strangest examples of affectation in Sienese art."
In their first edition the eminent critics regarded
Simone as the undoubted author of this work. South.
Above. Calling of the sons of Zebedee. Left. James
and John with their father Zebedee (head gone) are
fishing in their boat ; in the recess of the window
one is mending the nets, and another, fishing with
a rod, has just hooked a fish. Right. Christ attended
by two of the twelve receives the new disciples.
Below. Christ giving the keys of heaven to St. Peter.
The Saviour holds the two keys in the left hand and
lays the right hand on the kneeling Peter. A double
sword issues from Christ's mouth symbolizing power
over earth and heaven. The Holy Ghost in the
form of a dove hovers over the scene.

We now come to the most beautiful and dramatic
group of the series : The Raising of Tabitha. The
expresssion of kindly benevolence in the face of
Peter and the tokens of wonder in the specta-
tors, especially in a group of women, even in
the two whose heads have been removed, is finely
rendered. Crowe and Cavalcaselle call attention to

Avignon

one of the group, her hands raised in wonder above
her head, " an action common in Simone, repeated
from the Capella S. Martino at Assisi, and derived
from Duccio, who introduced it into his Entombment
in the altar-piece of the cathedral of Siena. The
spirit which dictated this movement is, in fact, as
essentially Sienese as the composition of the scenes"
generally, and is reminiscent not only of Simone's
productions at Assisi and St. Lorenzo Maggiore at
Naples, but of the whole school." The two female
figures to the right, who calmly survey the scene,
form a striking contrast to the passionate grief of the
former group. To the left in the recess of the
window are portrayed the many who came and
believed on the Lord : two children are bearing
olive branches. West. Above. The Crucifixion.
To the left of the Crucified is the weeping Virgin :
to the right the beloved disciple to whom the dying
Saviour is commending his mother: the Magdalen
clasps the Cross. Angels at each side of the Cross,
robed in blue, comfort the Redeemer ; soldiers in
mediaeval chain armour, bearded Jewish High Priests,
and other spectators stand around. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle refer to the Saviour erect on the Cross,
" a fine nude, of fair proportions and soft expres-
sion of face which may still be traced, and seems
the best representation of the crucified Redeemer
that had yet been produced by the Sienese school.
The whole composition is wanting in the great
Florentine laws of distribution." Below are some
badly damaged scenes that still await interpretation,
M. Denuelle^ describes them as (i) The Burial
of St. John. (2) Burning of the Baptist's remains !

1 Author of the beautiful water-colour reproductions in the
Trocadero Museum at Paris.

326

T'he Papal Palace

Two figures in this latter subject appear to be carrying
away vessels on their shoulders, which Crowe and
Cavalcaselle describe as stones. May not the scene
be an Entombment ?

The other portions of the palace, occupied by the
Archives of the department of Vaucluse, are accessible
daily from 9-11 and 2-4 to strangers "having an
official capacity or to duly qualified members ot
learned societies." ^ At the same hours on Thursdays
they are open to persons furnished with a permit
to be obtained at the office of the Prefect of
Vaucluse (Rue Viella). The old papal chapel ot
John XXII and his successor, had, at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, lost both its roof and the
vaulting which supported the upper chapel. A
dilapidated shell of four bare walls, it served as a
prison yard up to 1 871, and in 1878 was repaired
and put to its present use. The roof, but not the
lower vaulting, was rebuilt, and traces of the spring
of the lower arches are clearly visible. The abnormal
height of the building is due to the fact that it is
formed of two superposed chapels. All the windows
of the lower chapel have been blocked, and the
interior is lighted by the three tall Gothic windows
at the east end of the upper chapel, and by seven
Gothic windows in its left wall : the four smaller
windows, irregularly placed between the larger ones,
are believed by M. Digonnet to have belonged to the
original chapel of John XXII, the larger one having
been built when Benedict XII doubled its length.
These older windows, which Benedict had blocked,

^ Ou aux membra de corpi sa-vaitts justijiant de lean foncdons ou
leurs litres. This qualification is, however, interpreted liberally,
and courteous request by a traveller to be admitted is generally
granted.

-327

Avignon

were discovered and restored by the nineteenth-century
architect. Nothing remains of the rich mural decora-
tions or the beautiful pavement. ^ The degradation of
this famous chapel cannot be laid to the charge of
modern iconoclasts, for it was abandoned when
Clement VI built his new one over the Audience
Hall, and in 1369 was used as a storeroom and
granary : after the fire in 1392, the old chapel was
abandoned.

We descend to the cloisters — a picturescjue ruin —
now the archivist's garden and overgrown with climb-
ing roses and other plants. The arcading carried an
upper floor of whose two-light windows traces remain ;
at the south-west corner the bell-gable may be seen
in which swung the famous papal silver bell, actually
of ordinary bell-metal, but so called by reason of its
silvery tone. We next ascend the mighty Tour de
la Campane, whose battlements and machicoulis have
been restored. A recent critic, making merry over
these and other restorations, has diagnosed acute
crenel'it'is as a chronic affliction of Avignonnais archi-
tects.- The question of restoration is a thorny one.
Assuredly the architects responsible for the preserva-
tion of historic monuments in France, from the arch-
restorer Viollet-le-Duc onwards, cannot be charged
with lack of zeal. But the passion for restoration is
a national characteristic ; it is a part of the Gallic
hatred of disorder and love of neatness ; the same
impulse that urges the peasant or workman, intolerant
of ragged or gaping garments, to neatly patch his
upper or nether clothing rather than suffer a rent or
a hole to be seen. The reparation of this and other
portions of the palace was imperative if the silent but

• ^ee page 21 ;;.

^ A. Hallays : A-vignon ct le Comtat Venaissin.

328

The City Walls

unceasing erosive action of the elements was to he
arrested. The tower used for the preservation of
the local archives had to be made water-tight, and
that the necessary repairs took the form of a
restoration of the old battlements and machicoulis
was a reasonable and appropriate act of preservation.
The interior of the tower is composed of three noble
chambers, whose date may be inferred by the simple
escutcheon of Benedict XII on the Gothic vaultings ;
a fine old chimney-piece in the room of the first floor
may be seen in ascending. The view from the
summit is superb. A word of caution, however, to
the traveller may not be out of place : the restored,
gaping machicoulis arc ill-adapted for the modern
sight-seer, and a false step might easily bring a
premature termination to his travels.

Section HI

rm; city walls

Intimately associated with the history of the Palace
of the Popes of Avignon is that of the unparalleled
circuit of walls and towers which defended the city
from the scourge of organized robber bands during the
fourteenth century. The earliest quadrilateral fortifi-
cations embraced a relatively small area consisting of
the Rocher des Doms and the parishes of St. Agricol,
St. Didier, and St. Pierre ; these walls, demolished
and rebuilt on a more extensive scale in the twelfth
century, embraced an area easily traceable on the
modern map, from the Porte du Rhone, round the
Rues du Limas, Joseph Vernet, des Lices, Philo-
narde, Campane, Trois Colombes, to the Rocher.
It was these fortifications that the Cardinal St. Angelo

329

A PORTION OF IHR TOWN WALL, AVIGNON

The City Wails

forced the citizens to raze in 1227.' Until the
acquisition of Avignon by Clement \'I, the city was
an open one and only defended by a double fosse.
The origin of the papal walls has already been
traced,'- and their subsequent flite may now be briefly
given. The assaults of the Rhone proved more
destructive than human artillery. The walls and
towers having been hastily raised, towers fell by
reason of bad foundations, and the upkeep of the
fortifications was a continual drain on papal and
communal finances. In 1362 an irresistible flood of
waters overthrew the Portes St. Michel and Lim-
bert, and large breaches were often made by these
recurring inundations. Moreover, the expansion of
the city and the need of access to the suburbs involved
frequent displacement of old and opening of new
gates. In 1482 the whole system of the defensive
works was modified to meet the new situation caused
by the introduction of gunpowder ; the gates most
exposed to attack were further defeneied by outworks,
that of St. Lazare having been fortified during the
rule of Giuliano della Rovere by the addition of a
powerful bastide, with three round towers, a draw-
bridge, and a new fosse which communicated with
the great fosse before the main walls ; other modifica-
tions took place during the Huguenot wars. Not-
withstanding many repairs during the intervening
centuries, the fortifications had, under the second
Empire, suffered sad degradation, and at length
Viollet-le-Duc was entrusted with their restoration.
The famous architect set to work on their southern
side and had completed about one-third of the
restoration when the disastrous issue of the Franco-
Prussian war arrested all further progress until the
' See p. 36. - See p. 1 1^7.

33'

Avignon

Third Republic feebly resumed the task ; the walls
along the Rhone, especially useful in time of flood,
were backed with stone, their battlements and
machicoulis renewed. The visitor, however, will
need no reminder that the present passive aspect ot
the ramparts conveys but a faint impression of their
former state, when a broad and deep fosse, seven feet

A PORTION OK THE KAMI'ART, AVIGNON

by twelve, washed their bases, above which they raised
their once impregnable curtains full thirty feet. Two
of the old gates have been demolished — the Porte de
Limbert in 1896, and the Porte de I'Oulle in 1900
— the former, many times repaired, was the only
existing example of the external aspect of a mediaeval
gate, the latter had been rebuilt in 1786 in the
Doric style. A new gate, the Porte Petrarque, now
the Porte de la Republique, was erected by Viollet-

rhe City Walls

le-Duc when ttic walls were pierced for the new street ;
the Porte St. Dominique is also new. These noble
mural defences, three miles in circuit, twice narrowly
escaped demolition — at the construction of the rail-
way, when they were saved by a vigorous protest of
Prosper Merimce, and in 1902, when, on the pretext

FORTK PliTRAKi^tlK ; NOW, DlC LA REPUBLIQUE

that they blocked the development of the city, the
municipality decided to demolish the unrestored
portions. Luckily, the intervention of a public-
spirited Prefect of Vaucluse proved successful, and
they were again rescued from the housebreaker's pick.
No visitor to Avignon should omit to walk or
drive round the famous ramparts. Their stones have
been subjected to careful scrutiny by antiquarians
and the masons' marks {tacherons) — about 4,500 —

333

Avignon

carefully examined and reduced to about four hundred
and fifty types.' Opinions differ as to the meaning ot
these curious signs, but there is little doubt that
M. Maire's suggestion is the correct one — the work-
men were paid by the piece, and each had his own
private mark which he cut on the stones he laid and
thus enabled the foreman to check his work.-

We begin at the Porte du Rhone, and skirt the
older part of the walls on the north-west, with their
different style of corbels and machicoulis : M. Maire
has no hesitation in assigning this portion to the time
of Clement VI by reason of the coarser nature of
the masons' marks. Turning southwards, we pass the
Porte St. Dominique, and reach the Porte St. Roch
(formerly the Porte du Champfleury, and only
opened at plague times) and the Porte de la Re-
publique. We soon note the unrestored portion,
the site of the old Porte Limbert, and turn north-
wards to the Porte St. Lazare. Before we reach this
gate we may fitly make a digression, and in pious
memory of a great Englishman, fare along the Avenue
du Cimetiere to the grave of John Stuart Mill, who
with his wife lies buried within the cemetery under
an elder-tree on the right and towards the end of
Avenue 2. A plain stone slab bears the well-known
inscription to Mrs. Mill's memory — the noblest and
most eloquent epitaph ever composed by man for
woman. ^ It is pleasant to remember that Mill has

1 Bulletin Monumental Soc. Francaisc d.Mon. Hist, 1884. " Les
Signes des Tacherons sur les Remparts d' Avignon." A. & A.
Maire.

^ The writer's own experience in a workshop where men
were paid by the piece and where each used his own peculiar
notch of identification, confirms this.

^ W. J. Fox to his daughter : " If she [Mrs. Mill] remains
[in Avignon] it might be said ' a greater th.Tn Laura is here.' "
—Life, p. 99.

334

The City Walls

left golden opinions of his gentleness and generosity
behind him at Avignon. His house, a charming
little hermitage approached by an avenue of plane-
trees not far from the cemetery, was sold in 1905,
and a few relics were bought and still arc cherished
by the rare friends the somewhat self-centred philo-
sopher made in the city. The present owner has
preserved the library and study, where the Essay on
Liberty was written, much as it was in Mill's days.
To the peasants who met the tall, bent, spare figure,
musing and botanizing along the country lanes and
fields, he was known as " Monsieur Emile." Before
he left the city on his periodical visits to England,
Mill was wont to leave 300 francs with M. Rey,
pastor of the Protestant Church in Avignon : two
hundred for expenses of public worship ; one hun-
dred for the poor, always charging M. Rey to write
to England if any further need arose. Mill, a great
Englishman of European fame, to the amazement of
his French friends, was followed to his last resting-
place by no more than five mourners. As we write
news comes that the civic authorities have decided to
recall to posterity the association of the great thinker
with Avignon by giving the name of Stuart Mill to
a nc\v boulevard, and that a bust has been unveiled
to his memory near the pleasant city he loved so well.
Mill was much gratified that his pamphlet on the
Subjection of Women converted Mistral to the
movement for their enfranchisement, and their legal
equality with men.

We resume our promenade round the walls, and
soon rejoin the Porte du Rhone whence we started.

335

Avignon

Section IV^

the parish churches ok avignon

I . St. Agricol

Tradi rioN assigns to the church of St. Agricol
a very ancient origin, tor it is said to have been
founded by the patron saint in 680 on the site of
a Roman hippodrome. The present building is,
however, only known to documentary history since
the eleventh century. It was rebuilt in the time of
John XXII, and made a collegiate church in 1321.
Originally consisting of a nave only, the existing
chapels were added in the fourteenth, fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries ; the last, that of les Grillets,
having been founded in 1546: the restored Lady
Chapel designed by Peru dates from the early
eighteenth century. This somewhat heavy and
incongruous mass of architecture is best seen in its
outward aspect from the corner of the Rue St.
Praxede, and from the Rue Geline near the Hotel
de \'ille. The tower, modelled on that of the
cathedral, stands against the south wall of the apse,
and was begun in 1537 : in 1545 it had reached the
third storey when the work was interrupted, and
only completed in the eighteenth century. The
line of juncture may be easily distinguished by the
cornice that marks the end of the sixteenth-century
work.

The west front, reached by an imposing flight of
steps and framed between massive buttresses, has, like
most Avignonnais churches, sufi^ered much degradation,
and such of the meagre sculptural decorations of the
ogee portal as remain have been wholly renewed or
heavily restored. The city arms on the facade were

336

77/ 1' Parish Churches of Avignon

placed there in the fourteenth century by agreement
with the consuls who furnished part of the funds
required for the rebuilding ; the city arms will also
be seen on the bosses of the roof inside. The in-
terior, with its simple vaulting which springs direct
from the shafts without the intervention of capitals,
has a bold and graceful appearance. Some paintings
b)' native and other artists will be found in the
church, and at the east end of the right aisle a marble
altar-piece of considerable merit carved (1525) in
late Florentine style b}' a sculptor of Avignon,
Imbert Boachon : it is commonly known as the
tomb of the Doni. Peru's late Renaissance Lady -
Chapel, whose curious domed roof we saw from the
outside, will repay inspection. It was built for the
Marquis de Brantes, and contains the sepulchral
monuments of the founder's father (1703) and
grandfather (164.1). The decoration of this graceful
little oratory is singularly pleasing and harmonious :
the statues of the Baptist and of St. Elizabeth are
by the architect himself, and the charming repre-
sentation of the X'lrgin and Child is by Louis XIV's
favourite sculptor, Coyse\ox : Peru is also responsible
for the rich and ornate high altar of the church.
We are on classic ground here. It was in this
temple that Petrarch and Rienzi communed together
of the grandeur that once was Rome ; of her shame
and degradation, and of mighty schemes for her
redemption.

2. St. Pierre

Second and most beautiful of the parish churches
of Avignon is that dedicated to St. Peter : it may be
found by walking down the Rue des Marchands at
the south-east corner of the Place de I'Hotel de

z 337

if^fv p.

'ik

CHURCH OF ST. PIKRRE, AVIGNON

The Parish Churches of Avignon

\'ille and turning left just before reaching the Place
Carnot. Tradition sets back its foundation to a
period anterior even to that of St. Agricol, but a
reference in 919 to the \'cneration at St. Pierre
of the relics of the patron saint of the city, is the
first definite proof of its existence. Rebuilt in the
twelfth century, it was made a collegiate church in
1358, when the Cardinal of Palestrina founded a
chapter of canons there and built a cloister and
canons' houses. A century later nearly the whole
fabric was restored ; the side chapels were added and
the church was re-consecrated in 1458. In 149?
JJlaisc I'Ecuyer contracted to build the tower, and
the beautiful late Gothic fi9ade, designed by Philip
Ciarcia, was completed in I 5 I 2 ; the last structural
modification dates from 1854, when ^^^ ^^^ south
chapels were demolished and a new aisle with chapels
was added.

The church is happy in its surrounciings. Standing
in a picturesque irregular Place, whose southern
flavour is enhanced by the Italian loggia over the
house to the left ; its graceful ogee portal and win-
dows ; its charming cornice and balustrade ; its
flanking towers, form one of the most delightful
architectural features of the city. Tlic mouldings
of the portal are decorated with finely chiselled
designs of vine leaves and grapes, oak leaves and
acorns, and with familiar scenes of peasant life so
dear to the Gothic masons (note the figure cutting
grapes on the right). The advancing Renaissance
is seen in the medallions on cither side of the door-
head, and the eighteenth-century figure of the Virgin,
ample and matronly, is attributed to the local sculptor
Jacques Bernus. The beautifully carved sixteenth-
century doors (generally masked by common deal

z 2 3.^9

Avignon

protective leaves) are the work of Antolne Volard of
Avignon, and wrought with reliefs of the Annunciation
of St. Jerome and St. MicJiael. The simpler archi-
tecture of the interior forms a striking contrast to
the more ornate external decorations, the vaultings
of the nave springing from soberly carved corbels
against the walls. A lovely little Gothic pulpit in
white stone, delicately carved, will arrest the travel-
ler's attention. The original statuettes have been
replaced by others of various sizes and periods. St.
James and St. Andrew in marble are late fourteenth
century ; St. Paul is of the fifteenth, and the figure
of a bishop in wood of the seventeenth century. The
donor of the pulpit dedicated the work to God in
the following naive quatrain —

AJin que mieiix cest Chaire-ci
A Dieii du del U soit plaisante
Jacques Mallie li cry merci
Et de bon coeur la lui presence.

To the left of the choir will be seen a Renais-
sance altar-piece executed in i 524 by Imbert Boachon
for Perinet Parpaille.^ Modern plaster figures of
St. Peter and St. Paul have been substituted in the
niches for the original statues of the Virgin and
Child, St. Roch and St. Sebastian ; but the admir-
able relief of the Last Supper beneath these figures
deserves attention. The nave and choir of the
church were panelled in the seventeenth century,
with sumptuously decorated carvings, of which those
of the choir stalls still survive : their rich gilding
and ornate Corinthian columns frame pictures of
little merit, but as decoration they give a gorgeous
Italian aspect to the sanctuary. The church has

1 See page 269.

3+0

i..iw -m I miiTi

77/f Parish Churches of Avignon

an ample endowment of seventeenth-ccntui} paint-
ings, those by Pierre Parrocel having been executed
for the canon's cloister, and, on its destruction,
transferred to the church ; they consist of seven
scenes in the life of St. Anthony, and are executed
in the artist's most facile and suave manner. An
" Immaculate Conception " and others by Nicholas
Mignard, and an "Adoration of the Shepherds" by
Simon de Ch'dons, are also worth notice. The
second altar to the left of the entrance holds the now
forgotten relics of St. Pierre de Luxembourg (p. 191)
— his cardinal's hat and tunic.

On quitting the church, a turn under the archway
to the right will bring us to the Place du Cloitre St.
Pierre. This picturesque little square, that marks the
site of the old cloisters, is shaded by tall plane-trees ;
with the grey, weather-worn stone of the ecclesiastical
buildings showing traces of the vaulting of the old
cloisters, it forms one of the most peaceful old-world
spots in Avignon. As we follow round the church
we have a good view of the massive buttressed archi-
tecture of Blaise I'Ecuyer's tower standing south of
the apse, its usual position in Avignonnais churches,

3. St. DUicr

The third and most popular of the parish churches
of Avignon will be found by turning south from the
Place Carnot along the Rue des Fourbisseurs which
intersects one of the most curious of the old city
streets — the Rue du Vieux Sextier — with its awnings
and quaint architecture strangely suggestive of an
Eastern bazaar.

The external aspect of the collegiate church of St.
Didier, heavy and graceless, has little to attract the
visitor ; indeed, if a layman may be permitted to say

341

Avignon

«o, the thirteenth and early fourteenth century masons
of Provence appear never to have worked at their ease
in Gothic architecture ; they never attained the free-
dom and lightness and grace of their northern brethren
of the Isle de France. One has only to compare the
masterly art of the builders of the dome and lantern
and porch of the cathedral with the cumbrous archi-
tecture of the early Gothic churches of the city to
become aware that the inspiration of the most suc-
cessful Provencal masons derives from classic and
Saracen influences through Cisalpine Gaul and Spain.
The interior — an aisleless nave with small side
chapels — is even more austere than that of St. Agricol.
It is, however, relieved by a beautiful late Gothic
hexagonal tribune elevated on the north wall of the
nave. Little is known of this structure : it is some-
times described as a pulpit, but more probably may
have served for the exposition of relics. The organ
gallery at the west end is carried on columns whose
capitals are decorated with quaint reliefs of men and
animals after the manner of Gothic masons. But the
chief artistic treasure of the church is the remarkable
relief in marble formerly known as the Image du Roi
Rene, and now placed in the first chapel to the right
on entering the church. This famous relief, the
fourth of the Stations of the Cross {Notre Dame du
Spasme), was executed (1481) by Francesco Laurana,
a Dalmatian sculptor, for King Rene : it stood on
the high altar of the Celestins until the Revolution.
This, the artist's masterpiece, was wrought amid dis-
tracting anxieties and financial difficulties, and Fran-
cesco never succeeded in obtaining more than 850
of the 1 200 crowns promised for the work. The
powerful, almost repugnant realism of the figures ;
the romantic vigour of the grouping, contrasting with

342

f

A

^

m

\-J^\c

^=

Ojjj I'ORTAl. Ol- tARMEI.ITK MONASTERY, AVIGNON

Avignon

the more delicate carving of the architectural back-
ground, render this work one of the most impressive
examples of early Renaissance sculpture in France.
Happily, it has suffered but little from revolutionary
iconoclasts, the head only of one of the female figures
in the background having been renewed. The high
altar of rich marbles by Peru also came from the
Celestins, and the statues of the Baptist and St. Bruno
from the Chartreuse of Villeneuve ; paintings by
Simon de Chalons and Pierre Parrocel are among the
pictorial treasures of the church.

4. St. S^mpJioiie7i

The fourth of the parish churches, situated in the
Place des Carmes, may be reached from the Place
Carnot by following the street of that name and its
prolongation, the Rue du Portail Matheron. Before
turning into the Place des Carmes, and opposite the
machicolated clock-tower — all that remains of the
great Augustinian monastery founded in 1261 — we
sight a beautiful ogee portal with rich flamboyant
tracery — now forming the entrance to the stables of
the Hotel de la Croix Blanche : this lovely relic of
late Gothic architecture was formerly the portal
of the old Carmelite monastery, and the present
St. Symphorien was the abbey church of the same
great foundation. St. Symphorien has the longest
nave in Avignon, but the fine vaulted roof having
collapsed, for the second time, in 1762, the barrel-
roof of to-day was substituted in 1836 ; the vaultings
of some of the old side chapels, however, still remain,
and the church possesses the inevitable collection of can-
vases by Nicholas Mignard, Sauvan, Pierre Parrocel,
and other local painters. Retracing our steps along
the Rue du Portail Matheron, the Rue du Chapeau

34+

TOWliK, AUGUsl I.MAN MU.NAS 1 Kk V , AVIGNON

Avignon

Rouge will lead us to the Rue St. Jean le Vieux and
the Place Pie/ where a solitary tower, restored by
Viollet-le-Duc, is all that remains of the castellated
structure that once belonged to the Knights Hospital-
lers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, to whom
it was transferred in 1 3 i 2 after the destruction and
spoliation of the Knights Templars 2 by Philip the
Fair. The picturesque old military buildings with
their quaint turrets and windows have been recently
swept away, together with the equally picturesque
houses that enclosed the old Place Pie ; where, not
so long ago, one could see gathered on market days,
busily chaffering and gesticulating, the peasants of the
Comtat in their characteristic costumes, offering for
sale the varied produce of the most opulent soil of
France ; cheap manufactures and the new iron Halles,
modelled on those of Paris, have changed all that.

Section V

THE ABBEYS AND FRIARIES OF AVIGNON

The spoliation, suppression and demolition of the
vast and wealthy monastic establishments of the
Grands Augustins and the Grands Carmes is typical
of the fate that befel the whole of the regular Orders
in Avignon after the Revolution. A clean sweep has
been made of the extensive and rich buildings belong-
ing to the Dominican friars, and a whole new quarter
of Avignon, comprised between the Rue Rampart de
I'Oulle and the Rues Annanelle and Joseph Vernet and
traversed by four new streets, the Rues Victor Hugo,

^ See p. 269.

* The restored Gothic chapter-house of the Templars now
serves as the dining-room of the Hotel du Louvre in the Rue
St. Agricol.

The Abbeys and Friaries of Avignon

St. Thomas d'Aquin, St. Andre and des Fonderies,
now stands on their site. Not a wrack remains of
the Friars' sumptuous church, where their angelic
doctor was canonized and St Ives of Brittan}', patron
of lawyers, raised to the seats of the Blessed — a church
which surpassed the cathedral in size and in beauty
of decoration. The position even of the great re-
fectory, where popes were enthroned and so many
stirring scenes were enacted, is unknown, and the
magnificent sepulchral monuments of eighty cardinals
and twice that number of bishops are as if they had
never been. From Merimce's notes, we learn that in
1835 ^^^ church was used as an iron-foundry and that
the workmen, as they passed through the b?autiful
cloisters, used to amuse themselves by chipping off
fragments of their exquisite carvings. A similar fate
has befallen the magnificent rival establishment of the
Franciscan friars (Cordeliers).

The fashionable monaster}' of the Peres Celestins,
which rivalled the Dominican friary in wealth and
extent and which held the famous shrine of St. Pierre
de Luxembourg, was situated at the south of the city,
inside the old Porte St. Martial. Many royal favours,
as we have seen, were lavished on the sanctuary of
St. Pierre de Luxembourg, and one of the possessions
of the Cclestin fathers shown to the curious down to
the Revolution, was a ghastly portrait (so-called) of
King Rene's mistress, said to have been painted by
himself. Rene, who was one of their most munificent
benefactors — so the story ran — grievously afflicted by
the death of his mistress, desired to behold her once
again : he therefore ordered her tomb to be reopened
a few days after her burial in the cemetery of the
monastery. Appalled by the hideous spectacle the
once lovely form presented, he set to work to paint

347

Avignon

her as she appeared in her winding-sheet, erect in
the coffin set against a wall.

The vast church of the Order contemplated by
Clement VII, and lavishly endowed by the Visconti
of Milan, was begun in 1395, and never completed ;
when the body of its papal founder was translated
there from its temporary resting-place in the cathe-
dral, in 1406, the apse, the choir and the transept
alone had been raised. The enduring conflict of the
popes of Avignon and Rome stayed all further pro-
gress for sixteen years, and it was not till 1422 that
the great nave was commenced ; in 1424 the con-
struction having reached as far as the first bay, the
work vVas interrupted and eventually terminated by
closing up the bay with a great wall ; the spring of
the vaulting for the next bay is still visible. The
extent of the famous gardens of the monastery,
enclosed with a tall hedge of laurel " high as a pine
tree," may be conceived by the fact that the Hautpoul
barracks and part of the Rue de la Republique
occupy their site. The unfinished church is now
used for military purposes, but since permission to
view must be obtained from the Minister of War the
traveller is hardly likely to enjoy a sight of this
beautiful relic of early fifteenth-century architecture.
South of St. Didier, however, at the corner of the Rue
St. Michael and the Place des Corps Saints — so called
because the chief entrance to the Celestins stood
there — the external architecture of the great apse and
part of the monastic buildings may be seen.

In the Rue de la Republique, north of Hautpoul
barracks, the present Public Gardens of St. Martial
have been laid out on the site of the monastic build-
ings and gardens of the Benedictine monks. The
establishment was founded by Simon de Brosse in the

The Guilds of Penitents

time of Pope Urban \ , and in 1383 the abbey church
of St. Martial was begun in the flamboyant Gothic
style. Part of the old cloisters, four bays of the nave,
and the apse have survived, the last being now used
as a Protestant temple. The relic of the nave is
included in the post-office buildings, and the restored
tower serves as a centre for the municipal telegraph
and telephone wires. The amazing delicacy and
richness of the old window tracery are well seen from
the Rue des Lices, whence the lovely apse may be
entered (under a late Renaissance portal) at such
hours as the meagre cult of the Reformed Church
may permit.

The powerful Order of the Jesuit t'athcrs was not
long in leaving its architectural mark on the papal
city of Avignon, and the experienced traveller will
easily recognize their characteristic buildings as he
ascends the Rue de la Republique. The sombre
architecture of the church that stands obliquely on
his right was modelled on the Gesu at Rome, which
the Fathers sought to emulate in the sumptuousness
of internal decoration. The massive, gloomy block
of buildings that extends down the Rue du College
and along the Rue du Laboureur was the old novi-
ciat, and the present Lycee, joined to the church by
an archway, was formerly the Jesuit College.

Skction \ I

THE GUILDS OF PE.NITENTS

Under theocratic and oligarchic constitutions the
common people have ever been encouraged to divert
their political energies to the creation and government
of religions, charitable and craft guilds, all of which

3+9

Avignon

flourished exuberantly at Avignon. A perpetual
rivalry in works of mercy and in magnificent pro-
cessions rendered them popular ; their peculiar habit,
their gorgeous banners and strange devices ; their
flagellations and psalmody were a source of never-
ending satisfaction and delight to a spectacle-loving
people.

Of the seven Guilds of Penitents three have been
resuscitated since the Revolution, and a visit to their
faded sanctuaries will lead us through some interesting
streets of old Avignon. Taking the tramway from
the top of the Rue de la Republique, we alight at the
Porte Limbert and proceed by the Rue Guillaume
Puy to a bridge that crosses a branch of the Sorgue,
by whose bank the Rue des Teinturiers, a shady
avenue of fine old plane-trees, winds to the north-
west. Along this ccol, delicious way, where the
huge mill-wheels of the dyers' houses slowly revolve
their dripping pales, and garden walls are clothed
with ivy and other trailing plants, we direct our
steps, noting, embedded in a wall at the corner ot
the Rue Tarasque on our left, an old relief of the
monster slain by St. Martha. We soon reach a
little bridge that crosses to the portal of a chapel
framed between two Corinthian columns, above
which are figured two Penitents kneeling before the
Blessed Sacrament, with the legend : Vcnite adoremus.
Here is the entrance to the oratory of the Grey
Penitents, most ancient of the confraternities of
Avignon.

After the capture of the heretical city by Louis VIII
— so tradition tells — the victorious king, clothed in
grey sackcloth, headed an expiatory procession to a
little chapel of the Holy Cross that stood on the
banks of the stream outside the city walls : a guild

T'he Guilds of Penitents

was then established whose members devoted lliem-
selves to acts of penance and mercy, and a new
sanctuary was raised on the spot. As a mark of
especial favour papal permission was accorded for
the perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on
the altar of the guild, and, with a brief interruption
during the revolutionary troubles, it has there re-
mained exposed for well-nigh seven centuries down
to our own day.

This venerable sanctuary is consecrated in the
popular mind by the traciition of a famous miracle.
During the great flood of 1443 the waters rose so
high that certain of the brethren, fearing lest the
Blessed Body of the Lord might be reached by the
rising flood, hastily seized a boat and rowed to the
chapel door, where — marvellous to tell — the waters,
having invaded the chapel, were arrested for a space
of four feet on every side of the altar and, like the
waters of the Red Sea at Moses' rod, were a wall
unto it. The fame of the little oratory grew, and
soon a new and more spacious building was erected.

Let us enter the timber-ceiled passage that leads
to the guild chapel — and quietly and reverently, for
in its dim interior we surel}' shall find some pious
devotee kneeling in prayer before the altar. We
first reach a vestibule where on our left, behind an
iron grille, is the altar of Our Lady of the Vine-
dressers ; a short space, and two other chapels open
out from a sombre octagonal chamber. One, a long,
narrow Gothic building hung with processional
banners and lamps, contains the altar of the confra-
ternity, surmounteci by a huge gilded glory executed
by Peru in 1694, whereon the Sacrament is perpetu-
ally exposed — a privilege renewed by Pius \l\ in
1H18, when the ruined buildings were restored.

Avignon

The next bridge over the stream will lead us into a
pleasant little garden, whence a view may be obtained
of some remains of the old buildings of the guild,
including the bell-gable. We note, too, the half-
ruined tower of the Cordeliers, and as we resume our
way soon catch a glimpse of a chapel in picturesque
weather-worn dilapidation, all that survives of the
fiimous friary church that contained the reputed tomb
of the immortal Laura.

Continuing north-west along the Rue Bonneterie,
as far as the narrow Rue Rouge, we turn left into a tiny
irregular Place where, behind a nineteenth-century
fa9ade, stands Notre Dame la Principale, one of the
oldest churches in Avignon. Founded in 930 by
Duke Boson of Provence, and rebuilt in the fifteenth
century, it needed extensive repairs in 1548, when
the city fathers gave one hundred gold florins towards
the cost. The fabric, sold during the Revolution, has
since been partly reconsecrated to religious uses, and
now serves as the chapel of the Guild of the White
Penitents, founded in 1527 and reorganized during
the Restoration. The history of the guild is a
curious one. On July 19, 1527, thirteen virtuous
citizens of Avignon met and decided to establish a
Confraternity of White Penitents of the Five Wounds
of Our Saviour Jesus Christ. They first found shelter
in the Carmelite monastery, but their numbers rapidly
increasing, the brethren petitioned the Dominican
Friars for a plot of ground whereon they miglit raise
a sanctuary worthy of their growing importance :
in a year a magnificent chapel stood in the garden ot
the friary, where the members of the guild, with
the applause of all good men, practised mortification
and other acts of virtue with incredible fervour and
profound devotion, to the unspeakable joy and glad-

I'he Guilds of Penitents

ness of their hearts and to the sanctification of the
inhabitants of Avignon.^ Gifts and bequests of
money and relics were lavished on the guild, and
soon their chapel became one of the most famous
sights in Avignon. Its walls glowed with frescoes
by Simon de Chalons — ravishing figures of prophets
and sybils ; its altars shone with priceless jewels, the
gifts of regal and aristocratic members, while a grue-
some decoration of human skulls and cross-bones
recalled the vanity of human pomp and riches. King
and subject, cardinal and priest, seigneur and bour-
geois, all were confounded in the common habit of
white sackcloth marked with the bleeding Heart of
Jesus and the Crown of Thorns. Two slits in the
hood formed apertures for the eyes, and each penitent
bore a discipline in one hand and a torch in the
other, as he went his way along the streets of
Avignon. The rule of the guild was of the harshest,
and members were required to repair to the infirmary
on the return of the procession, that the wounds
inflicted by their scourges might be tended.

At the memorable reception of Henry III on
November 19, 1574, his majesty refused to sit on the
raised dais prepared for him, and received the scourge
of the order, made of silver thread and decorated
with rosettes of gold, from the rector's hand, kneel-
ing with great humility and devotion in the presence
of the queen-mother Catherine de' Medici, the Duke
of Alen^on, Henry of Navarre, the Prince of Conde,
and the Duke of Guise. In the monster procession
of December 4, in which no less than 1800 penitents
of all the guilds are said to have taken part, Henry,
clothed in the sackcloth of the order and holding
the discipline in his hand, drew tears from the spec-
^ Confierie des Penitents Blatics, Avignon, 1858.
AA 353

Avignon

tators by his incredible modesty and humility. Two
by two the brethren paced, each of the royal peni-
tents carrying the cross in turn, the Duke of Guise
bearing it with angelic modesty ; they visited the
cathedral, the chief churches and monasteries, where
hymns and motets were sung to the honour of the
Son of God and of the Holy Virgin. At the
Carmelites, the most pious and devout king in his
turn became cross-bearer, and with inconceivable
devotion and humility bore the sacred emblem. The
venerable Cardinal of Lorraine then received the
cross, and carried it barefoot as far as the house at
the sign of the Bell.

But the blood of the Bartholomew massacre, only
two years shed, lay on the heads of the chief actors in
this edifying spectacle, and ere the century had closed
all save Henry of Navarre had passed to their tragic
doom : the Duke of Alen9on lay in his grave ; the
Duke of Guise had been stabbed to death, and the
debauched and treacherous Henry III, author of his
murder, had also fallen beneath the assassin's hand ;
Catherine, too, had gone to her account, burdened
with the anathemas of the Church.

A curious legend is associated with this royal visit
to Avignon. Count Berton, father of the brave
Cr'tllon, having invited the four Henrys of France —
Henry III, Henry of Navarre, Henry of Conde, and
Henry of Guise — to a banquet at his house, in the
course of the evening the guests fell to playing at dice.
As Henry III made his throw, blood gushed from the
table where they were playing — an ominous presage
of the bloody death impending over the four royal
players.^

^ Henry of Navarre, Henry IV. of France, was assassinated
in 1610.

354

The Guilds of Penitents

According to the statutes of 1553 the officers of
the guild comprised a rector; his two subordinates; a
treasurer; twelve councillors ; four masters of the cere-
monies ; four of the novices ; three sacristans ; three
(male) nurses ; two messengers and one priest. All the
officers were to be men of good life and conversation,
neither blasphemers nor tavern-keepers, and the rector
must know how to read and write. The nurses were
to keep the infirmary in good order and provide for
binding up of the wounds of the scourged, and chief!)',
two days before a procession, to make diligent pro-
vision of all things necessary for such curing ot
wounds. They must remain in the infirmary all the
time a procession was in progress, and never scourge
themselves at any time. Many restrictions aim at
excess of zeal in inflicting discipline. Those who
desired to scourge themselves, or to be beaten, shall
not dare to begin before the office is ended, on pain
of being stripped of their habit by the beaters (bas-
tonniers) and excluded from the procession. After
the procession the scourged must straightway repair
to the infirmary to be tended, and if one swoon
during the procession or cannot bear up he must
leave the ranks and return to the chapel, and not
enter any strange house or chapel. The brethren
should walk with bowed heads and reverently ; the)'
must not sit down on any bench in the town, nor
make derisive gestures, nor speak in a loud voice
among themselves, nor to any person, not even their
wives, outside their ranks. Item, they must not
take any drink that may be offered to them, and if
they need refreshment they should bring something
with them. If a brother swear by God, or the
V'irgin Mary, or the saints, in the presence of the
rector, he shall leave the chapel ; or if in the

AA2 355

Avignon

hearing of three or four witnesses during procession
he shall be expelled the guild. During the sitting of
the council no brother shall insult another nor bring
arms into the council chamber, nor enter the great
chapel with arms of offence. Women may join the
guild on payment of the same contributions as the
brethren, but shall not enter the chapel, nor wear the
habit, and although the brethren were to accompany
a dead brother to his grave clothed in their habit, to
the number of twenty-five at least, such procession
was not to accompany the body of a woman
member.^

We now fare northwards, cross the Place Carnot,
and follow the Rue Banasterie to a chapel at its end,
graced by a fine renaissance facade, with a striking
relief above the portal — two angels, surrounded by
cherubim and aureoled in a glory, bearing the
Baptist's head in a charger. This is the oratory of
the Guild of the Black Penitents of St. John the
Baptist, founded in 1586 by Pompeo di Rieti, colonel
of a regiment of papal infantry. The Penitents
Noirs de la Misericorde devoted themselves to the
service of prisoners in the jails, whom they visited
and fed ; they accompanied the condemned to the
scaffold, and gave them Christian burial. By papal
dispensation they were empowered in 161 6 to deliver
a criminal from death on the festival of their patron
saint. In the eighteenth century a pious benefactor
built a madhouse behind their chapel, and thence-
forward to the care of prisoners was added the care of
the insane ; and the older generation of Avignonnais
still recall the strange mediaeval figure of the Black
Penitent, clothed in his sable habit, with two apertures
in the cowl for the eyes, rattling his collecting-box

1 Confririe des Penitents Blancs d' A-vignon,

The Guilds of Penitents

about the streets of the city, and crying, " Pour les
pauvres prisonnicrs ; s'il vous plait." 'I'he sacristan
will admit the traveller to the sumptuously decorated
chapel, with its faded gilt carvings and pictorial
decorations in the lavish Italian style of the eighteenth
century. Some of the old habits of the order arc
shown in the sacristy, where, too, was formerly
cherished the priceless crucifix of ivory which Master
Guillermin carved for Jean Maune, a famous surgeon
of Avignon, who presented it to the guild.

A pale reflection of these processional glories sur-
vived down to the period of the Second Empire.
When the time for the celebrations drew near what
a sweeping and watering of streets ! What fervour of
excitement among the rival parishes of the city !
Green boughs were brought in, awnings raised over
the streets ; the rich displayed from the balconies of
their houses their most precious silks and embroideries,
tapestries and damasks ; the poor hung out their quilts
and counterpanes, and covered walls with sweet-
smelling linen of dazzling whiteness fresh from the
wash. The great reposoirs for the candelabra, the
vases of flowers, the old folk sitting on chairs expectant
of the procession, the lads and lasses pelting each
other with roses and compliments. Then the approach
of the tall, handsome Suisscs in their gorgeous scarlet
uniforms and bearing halberds ; the veiled maidens
of the parishes arrayed in white ; the members of the
guilds in their quaint habits ; the monks, the friars ;
the rolling of the drums, the stirring music ; the
reciting of the rosaries ; the clouds of incense ; and
finally the solemn, impressive silence at the elevation
of the Host in a resplendent monstrance over the
kneeling people. At night the torchlight procession
of the White Penitents pacing through the streets

3S7

Avignon

like ghosts in their winding-sheets — is it not all
written in Mistral ? ^ Many an old Avignonnais
will shake his head gloomily to-day as he tells of
these past splendours and bewails the ruin of crafts
that followed on their suppression.

Section VII

SOME SECULAR EDIFICES OF AVIGNON : THE MUS^E CALVET.

The tall, machicolated tower, surmounted by a
belfry that rises from the centre of the new Hotel
de Ville of Avignon, bears witness to an earlier
building on that spot. There of old stood the
livree of Petrarch's patron. Cardinal Giovanni
Colonna, which in i-|-47, having descended to the
Cardinal of Albano, was purchased by the city fathers,
who transferred thither their archives from the Cor-
deliers, and who a quarter of a century later, desiring
to add a clock to their official residence, leased the
tower for twenty florins a year from the nuns of
St. Laurent, to whom ir had been bequeathed.
Monthly payments to the clock-maker in 1474 for
windings prove that Jacquemart and his wife were
already sounding the hours for the good folk of
Avignon. In 1481 the figures, having been injured
by lightning, a Gothic canopy was erected for their
protection. The present Monsieur et Madame
|acquemart are modern reproductions, and the clock
bears no resemblance to the fine old fifteenth-century
horologe, with its face of blue and its gilded figures
and hands, the four Evangelists at its corners, and
a globe showing the phases of the moon.

The Dames de St. Laurent were a Benedictine
^ Moun Eipelido.

Some Secular Edifices of Avignon

community, and several members of the Sade family
took the veil there. An interesting fact bearing on
the life of Petrarch has been brought to light by
M. Bayle — a reference in an obituary belonging to
the convent to the death of Francesco Petrarca,
amicus nostei j The citizens were proud of the clock

JAC(2UEMART

they set up in the old convent tower which they
bought from the nuns in 1497 : they spared no
expense for its maintenance anti for the machinery to
work the figures. The name Jacquemart is probably
derived from the nickname applied by the F'rench
nobles to their serfs {Jacques), and the varlet who rang

^ Bulletin lie I'dticluse, ll

z, " Etudes sur Laure," p. ^04.

359

Avignon

the bell in a feudal castle was known as the Jacque.
Madame Jacquemart is represented handing the floral
emblem of constancy to her husband.

The picturesque old municipal buildings, resemb-
ling a mediaeval Italian Palazzo Pubblico, with their
machicolations and their mullioned windows, were

PORTAL, HOTEL BARONCELLI-JAVON

swept away in 1845 to give place to the present
pseudo-classic pile.

Of the magnificent patrician and cardinalate edifices
of Avignon but few remain : one of the oldest and
most interesting survivals is the beautiful late Gothic
portal of the Hotel Baroncelli-Javon, opposite the end
of a short street on our left as we turn down the Rue
St. Agricol from the Place de I'Hotel de Ville. Re-
turning to the Place, the Rue du Change, to the

360

Some Secular Edifices of Avignon

south-east, will bring us to the old commercial centre
of Avignon, the quarter of the money-changers
and brokers and chief merchants of the city, its
winding streets characteristic of a mediaeval city and
designed for protection against archers. In the Rue
Galante, which leads southward from the Place du
Change, is a fine eighteenth-century mansion recently
restored, and in the Rue de la Masse, across the
Place St. Didier, will be found other examples of
patrician architecture : on the right, a short distance
down, is the Hotel de Montreal (1637), whose halls
were painted by Nicholas Mignard with the legend
of Theagenes, and opposite to it the stately and
famous Hotel Crillon,' rebuilt early in the seventeenth
century in the dignified, but somewhat heavy, over-
charged style of the late Italian renaissance. It has a
nobly-proportioned courtyard, and will repay careful
inspection. In 1784 the Duke of Cumberland,
brother of George III, coming to Avignon in search
of a milder winter clime, was royally entertained by
the last of the Dukes of Crillon, and left his host in
the spring of 1785 with gratitude for restored health.
In the Rue des Fourbisseurs, which leads north-east
from the Place St. Didier, other examples of domestic
architecture will be found.

We may return to the Place de I'Hotel de Ville by
the Rue des Marchands, and on the western side
of the Rue de la Republique pass tiown the broad Rue
Vialla : turning an angle to the left, we reach at the
bottom of the Rue Petite Calade the spacious Rue
Joseph Vernet, which in papal times under its old
name Rue Calade was the first paved and most
favoured residential street in the city. To our left
is the superb Hotel de Villeneuve (1742), now the
1 See p. 354.

361

Avignon

Musee Calvet, and opposite, the Hotel des Taillades,
with trophies sculptured on its fa9ade.

The vicissitudes of the collections of art and
science which now form the Musee Calvet have been
many. In 1793 no less than 836 pictures, seized by
the revolutionists in the churches and religious estab-
lishments of the city, lay piled in the archbishop's
palace and other buildings. Three subsequent sales
and some remissions to Nimes and Paris greatly
reduced their numbers, and when the keeper of
the newly formed Musee d'Avignon published his
catalogue of paintings in 1802 seventy-seven only
had remained. In 1805 these paintings were exhi-
bited in the refectory of the old monastery of
St. Martial, where a municipal library was also
established. In the Musee d'Avignon thus formed,
the pictorial salvage of the Revolutionary era lay
neglected and deteriorating from damp, until in 1816
the Restoration officials offered to surrender them to
such of the churches of Avignon as might claim them
for their own : whereupon all, save a few mediocre,
unclaimed works, found their way back to the eccle-
siastical authorities.

Meanwhile the famous physician and collector. Dr.
Calvet, had died in 18 10, and bequeathed his fortune,
his library, his extensive collection of paintings, statues,
coins, precious stones and other artistic treasures to
the city of Avignon. First exhibited at St. Martial,
they were subsequently exhibited (1832), in the Hotel
de Villeneuve, which the municipality had acquired for
85,860 francs from a rich merchant who had been
ruined by the Revolution of 1830 : the whole of the
municipal collections were then transferred to the Rue
Calade and the present Musee Calvet opened to the
public in May 1834. I'he city was further enriched

362

Some Secular Edifices of Avignon

in 1839 ^y ■^ valuable collection of minerals anei fossils
bequeathed by M. Esprit Requicn, a well-known
botanist and scientist, together with a score of
pictures and some books : these, forming the Musec
Requicn, were housed at St. Martial. The State,
however, having decided to install the new post
office at St. Martial, the municipality agreed to con-
struct a natural history museum at the bottom of
the garden of the Musce Calvet and facing the Rue
Bouquerie. But the building was delayed ; the post
office officials claimed entrance at St. Martial ; and
a large part of the valuable collection of minerals and
fossils, after having been carted to the mairie and the
fire station, was, by the order of the Mayor, M.
Pourquery de Boisserin,^ flung into the Rhone as
" a heap of old stones."

The traveller will do well to begin his survey ot
the Musce Calvet on a week day, under the courteous
and deprecatory guidance of the official cicerone
whose paternal and hereditary affection for the
treasures it contains will afford him no small pleasure;
he can then return on Sunday afternoon and enjoy
at leisure the objects he may desire to study more
closely, with no interruption save the yawns of the
bored soldiers who serve as guardians.

The collection ot ancient sculpture and inscrip-
tions, for which nearly the whole of Provence has
been laid under contribution, and which has been
strengthened by the purchase in 1841 of the Nani
collection from Venice, contains no work of first
importance, but a pleasing Greek stele and a Greco-
Roman torso of a Venus found in a field at Pourrieres
by a peasant, arc worthy of note. We pass to the

' Hallay's Avignon, p. io8. In 19 10 M. Boisseiin was
elected a deputy amid a scene of wild enthusiasm.

Avignon

precious salvage of medisval and renaissance plastic
art in Salle III, where stands the chief treasure of
the collection- — a beautiful figure of the Virgin and
Child, of the best period of French art. Its story is
a curious one. Carved in the fifteenth century for
the Celestins, it came to be enclosed, until recently,
in the fafade of a private house in the Place des
Corps Saints. M. Digonnet, when keeper of the
museum, was fortunately able by alert and diplomatic
bargaining to acquire the statue for the city, and
when it was dislodged from its niche in the wall, an
inscription, dated 1791, came to light, telling that
the Virgin formerly adorned the portal of the mon-
astery. Typically French in character, it recalls
many a sweet and tender Virgin of the Isle de France
masters. Among the few maimed relics of sculpture
that made pre-revolutionary Avignon one of the
richest treasure-houses of that art, we may signalize
the statuettes Nos. 80-82, from the tomb of Innocent
VI at Villeneuve ; a collection of Romanesque and
Gothic capitals ; the arms of Pierre de Luxembourg
and his bust ; the bust of Clement VII, the sepul-
chral monuments of Pope Urban V, of Cardinal de
Brancas, of the Seigneur of La Palisse, with the
statuettes of Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance,
and of Cardinal Lagrange, with the gruesome re-
cumbent figure known as Le TransL The beautiful
Italian fifteenth-century bas-reliefs — St. Helena and
the Virgin — will also be noted.

The chief interest of the museum to the cultured
traveller lies in the small but admirable series of
Primitifs Franfais on the first floor. The whole
collection of pictures is arranged chronologically and
nominally. On the left, as we enter the long room,
are, i and 2, fragments of frescoes from the Papal

364

Sowe Secular Kdifices of Avignon

Palace and a private house. 8, The Fountain of Life,
is a devotional painting. To the left,^ the Magdalen
with the pot of ointment ; to the right, St. Mary of
Egypt, with long and appropriate inscriptions in Latin
and old French. 3, St. Pierre de Luxembourg in
Ecstasy, formerly was placed over the saint's tomb in
the Cclestins. The background is a representation
of embossed Moorish leather. The picture, prob-
abl}' early fifteenth century, was exhibited at Paris in
1904 among the Primitifs Fran9ais (No. 70). 7, a
triptych, is much decayed ; in the central panel the
pope enthroned is in the act of blessing ; right and
left are St. Maurice and St. Martha with the captive
Tarasque. 4, A sainted Bishop and St. Catherine,
was also exhibited at Paris. 9, Adoration of the
Child Jesus, formerly accepted as a work by Gerard
of Haarlem, is now believed to be an example of the
early Proven9al school and painted about 1480 ;
the knightly donor, a strong and reverent figure,
evidently a portrait, kneels beside St. Louis of
Toulouse. The striking southern architecture of the
castle in the background and the beautiful Proven9al
type of the Virgin make this one of the most note-
worthy pictures in the museum. 5, Virgin and
Child and the Donor, a surpliced canon. 6, St.
Lawrence. 10, A double-panel painting : {a) St.
Michael, (/>) The Annunciation. The work has been
doubtfully attributed to Nicholas Froment of Avignon,
but I I, St. Siffrein, Bishop of Carpentras, may be more
confidently assigned to this famous master of King
Rene. The picture, a masterpiece, for a long time
served as the lid of a chest in the church of St. Mazan,
and was given by the cure to Monseigneur Debelay,
who bequeathed it to the seminary of Avignon.
' The spectator's left.

365

Avigno?!

Exhibited at Paris, the work evoked much interest,
and, at the request of the Prefect of Vaucluse, finally
found a home in this museum.

We next come upon four examples of the work
of Simon de Chalons (Nos. 370-373), a facile and
favourite artist of the Avignonnais in the sixteenth
century, who during a long and busy career of forty
years (i 54.5-1 585) filled the churches and monasteries
with his paintings. 371, Adoration of the Shepherds,
is a good example of the artist's manner. Below
these are a collection of historical portraits, chiefly
by unknown artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries : 426, Charles the Bold. 427, supposed
portrait of Henry VII of England, will interest
the traveller. 429, Ant. Calvet, of Villeneuve, an
ancestor of the founder of the museum. 115, Por-
trait of Cardinal Odet de Coligny, by Cornellle de
Lyon (about 1548), long believed to be a portrait ot
Cardinal Bembo, was exhibited at Paris among the
Primitifs. 312, Michael Nostradamus, the renowned
astrologer, by his son Caesar (155 5- 1629), believed
to be a memorial portrait placed by his widow over
her husband's tomb in the Franciscan church at
Salon. 589, portrait, by Philippe de Champaigne
( 1 602-1 674). 275 is a masterly portrait by the
brothers Lenain (seventeenth century). 276, formerly
ascribed to Phillippe de Champaigne, is now assigned
to the Lenain.

Before we pass firther along the gallery we may
conveniently examine some sketches, by modern
artists, of historical importance. 679 is a copy, in
water-colour, by Aubanel, of the altar piece ot
St. Maximin, the earliest known representation of
the Papal Palace (about 1520). Once attributed to
Lucas van Leyden, it is now ascribed to a Venetian,

366

Some Secular Edifices of Avignon

Antonio Ronzin. A ravelin is seen in front of the
west portal, and the Tour do la Gache, shown at its
full height, dominates the Great Chapel of Clement
\'I. 707 and 708 are pencil sketches, by Denuelle,
of the Memmi fresco in the porch of the cathedral,
and of a fresco in the chapel of St. Jean in the palace.
The latter is interesting as showing the condition of
the palace frescoes in 1850. 690, another water-
colour copy (by Chaix) of the Memmi fresco, would
appear to prove that the painting has suffered much
deterioration since 1845.

We now proceed to our examination of the works
of some seventeenth and eighteenth-century French
painters whose names will be familiar to visitors to
the Louvre at Paris. Nicholas Mignard (i 606-1 668)
who settled at Avignon, was known as " Mignard
d'Avignon," to distinguish him from his more famous
kinsman, Pierre Mignard le Romain (1612-1695),
the favourite painter of the Grand Monarque. By
the former artist arc some half-dozen pictures, among
which we may note 296, The Dead Christ. By
Pierre four works are exhibited : 302 is a portrait ot
the Grand Dauphin, only legitimate son of Louis
XIV^ ; 303, portrait of the royal mistress, Mme. de
Montespan as Flora, and her son, the Duke of Maine
as Zephyrus ; 305 is a child's portrait by a grandson
of Nicholas Mignard. Among some works by Sebastian
Bourdon of Montpellier (161 6-1671), one of the
twelve founders of the Academic Royale of Paris, are :
78, Baptism of Christ, and, 81, the artist's self-
portraiture. By Jean Baptiste Rcgnault (1754-1829)
a successful Parisian artist of his day, is 347, a
Bacchante, a replica of his diploma painting. Gaspar
Poussin (161 3-1675) is seen in four characteristic
landscapes. 1 20, a rather poor Bacchus and Ariadne,

367

Avignon

is by the favourite court painter and academician,
Antoine Coypel (1661-1722). We now reach a
numerous collection of works by nine members of the
Parrocel family of Avignonnais painters, the most
distinguished of whom, Pierre (1670-1739), is seen
at his best in 321, St. Francis receiving the Cord of
the Order from the Virgin. The two portraits 183
and 184, by Jean Alexis Grimoux (1678-1740), are
priceless examples of the artist's skill in portraiture
(purchased for 150 frs.), and superior to any of the
four examples in the Louvre. By Nicholas Largil-
liere (1656— 1746), a pupil of Lely and some time
court painter to Charles II and James II of Eng-
land, is a fine portrait, 258, believed to be that of
the Count of Grignan, governor of Provence. A
characteristic diploma painting of the revolutionary
period by Jean Fran9ois Pierre Peyron (1744-18 14)
is 327, Curius Dentatus, while preparing his own
modest repast refuses the presents offered by the
Samnite envoys. We now turn to 130, the gem of
the collection, an unfinished masterpiece by Jacques
Louis David (1748-1825), Death of Joseph Barra.
This painting, in the artist's approved classic style,
was ordered by the National Convention to im-
mortalize the memory of a young drummer-boy
aged 14 \vho, mortally wounded in '93 during
the war of La \'endee, pressed the tricolor to
his breast while his life blood was ebbing away,
and died with the word " Liberty " on his lips.
" The little drummer-boy," says John Addington
Symonds, "though French enough in feature and in
feeling, lies, Greek-like, naked on the sand — a very
Hyacinth of the Republic, La V'ende's Ilioneus. The
tricolor cockade and the sentiment of upturned
patriotic eyes, are the only indications of his being a

368

Some Secular Edifices of Avignon

hero in his teens, a citizen who thought it sweet
to die for France." ' Our cicerone, whose historical
knowledge is at fault, will tell you the scene illus-
trated is that of a captive republican lad who, on being
bidden cry Five la Ro'i ! replied b}' Vive la Republique !
and was thereupon shot by the royalists.- 154, by
Joseph Siffrein Duplessis (i 725-1 802), is an excellent
portrait of Louis XVI's chief physician Lassone ;
and 422, by Mme. \'igee Lebrun, is a good example
of that lady's facile skill in portraiture. 170, sup-
posed portrait of Queen Hortense, is attributed to the
precocious talent of Baron Gerard (1770-1837), and
is said to have been painted when he was seventeen
years of age. We next turn to a large collection of
paintings by the Vernets of Avignon, most famous of
whom was Horace (l 789-1 863). 417 and 418,
Mazeppa, have a curious interest. The former
canvas having been slashed by a rapier, the artist
made an exact copy (418), which he exhibited in
Paris at the Salon of 1826. This latter painting
was acquired in the same year by the Musee Calvet,
whereupon Vernet repaired the slashed canvas and
presented it to the gallery. In 419 Horace has
portrayed his grandfather, Claude Joseph Vernet, the
great marine painter, lashed to the mast of a storm-
tossed ship in order to study the effects of a tempest.
The gallery possesses some score of paintings by Claude
Joseph, as well as the original drawings of the series
of the seaports ot France exhibited in the Louvre
at Paris. 710, by Fugene Deveria (i 805-1 865),

' Sketches and StuJies in Southern Europe, Vol. II., pp. -t,\ I,

314.

■"^ Evidently the story of the heroic magistrate of Roche-
Bernard, whose cruel execution is described by Michelet. Re'v.
Fr., VI, p. 402.

B B 369

Avignon

The Four Henrys at the Hotel Crillon.^ 171 is a
Battle Scene by Jean Louis Gcricault (1791-1824),
the pioneer of the Romantics. Among the three
Huets, 232 is a view of Avignon painted in 1842.
Examples of the Barbizan school are: i 24, Daubigny's
Les Isles Vierges ; 116, Italian Landscape, an early
Corot, painted in 1842.

We now glance rapidly at some canvases by
Avignonnais and other modern artists, not for any
lack of artistic merit in those excellent works, but
rather because the predominant interest of the
traveller will probably be in the older schools oi
painting. In the collection of Italian and other
foreign schools, 555, Coronation of the Virgin, long
passed for a genuine Giotto, to whose school it
undoubtedly belongs. 523, Virgin and Child, is
assigned to Jacobello del Fiore, well known as one
of the precursors of the Venetian school : a note in
Italian behind the picture gives the date as 1421.
517, Virgin and Child and the Baptist, a school
painting attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, is said to
have long served as a cobbler's bench at Avignon.
524, Holy Family, is a contemporary copy of a
Raphael in the Hermitage collection at St. Petersburg.
By the sixteenth and seventeenth century Bolognese
eclectics are, 512, Polyphemus and Galatea, Annibale
Carracci ; and, 513, Hoi}' Family, Lodovico Car-
racci ; and, 503, Death of St. Jerome, attributed to
Guercino. Of the Venetian school of the same period
are 547 and 548, Miracle of the Water turned into
Wine, and Supper in the House of Simon the
Pharisee, by Turchi ; and 534, 535, Spring, and
Jesus at the House of Martha and Mary, by Francesco
and Jacopo Bassani. Three Salvator Rosas, 539-541,
' See p. 354.

Some Secular F.difices of Avignon

illustrate the later Neapolitan School ; and 554, St.
Barbara, is assigned to the Spanish painter Zurbaran,
as is also 553, The Gipsy. 511, Portrait of Arch-
bishop Espinola y Guzaron of Seville, is another
seventeenth-century Spanish painting by Careno de
Miranda. Some German school paintings follow,
among which arc, 657, Resurrection of Christ (late
fifteenth century), and 661, Man's Portrait, long
attributed to Holbein but now assigned by Dimier
to the Master of Ricux-Chatcauneuf : it is the most
important of the half-score works which have been
ascribed to this mysterious foreign master. A few
Dutch and Flemish paintings of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries are next seen : 620, Man's
Portrait by Miervelt ; 585 and 586 Village Scenes,
attributed to Peter Breughel the Elder, are probably
copies. 587 and 588, The Four Elements, are by
Jan Breughel, Peter's son. 646, St. Anthony in Medi-
tation, by Dominic van Tol, once hung in Marie
Antoinette's private oratory. A fine drawing, 714,
supposed portrait of the painter Stalbent, has been
attributed to Vandyck and also to Velasquez.

In Salon II, to the left of the entrance to the long
gallery, will be found the precious ivory crucifix exe-
cuted in 1659 by Guillcrmin for the Penitents Noirs,^
and a lovely bust of a child attributed to Donatello,
and, subsequent!}', to Desiderio da Scttignano. In
this and the following rooms. III and I\', will be
found a miscellaneous collection of paintings, minia-
tures, enamels, and oki Roman glass — a valuable
exhibit — Egyptian and other antiquities.

Descending to the ground floor, some topographi-
cal paintings in the librar)-, the most important of
which, 179, is in the keeper's room, will be shown
1 See p. 357.
B B 2 371

Avignoji

by courtesy. The solemn processional entrj' of the
Papal nuncio, Doria Pamphili, was painted in minute
detail by Claucie Gordot in 177-I-, after the retro-
cession of the city and the county to the pope by
Louis XV. 1 The nuncio is seated in a state carriage,
drawn by six richly caparisoned horses, and preceded
by Swiss guards with halberds. The whole aspect of
the Place du Palais is shown : the palace with the
outworks and drawbridge, erected by \'ice-Legate
Colonna ; the turrets ; the archbishop's palace ; the
Rocher des Doms ; the mint. The library is also
rich in illuminated MSS. of great beauty.

We next pass through the gardens to the gallery
of portraits (Sal/e des I /lustrations Vauclusiennes), noting
on our right the monument with a Latin inscription
placed (1823) by an English sentimental traveller,
Charles Kelsall, in the ruined church of the Cordeliers,
on the site of the supposed tomb of Laura. The chief
interest in this room is the collection of so-called
portraits of Petrarch and Laura : 430 and 43 i of the
poet, and 432 and 433 of his mistress. None is
earlier, however, than the seventeenth century. 432
is obviously copied from the miniature in the famous
Codex (" Canzone of Petrarch,") preserved in the Lau-
rentian Library at Florence. 433, Laura with the
Flower, is said by Gustave Bayle ^ to be a portrait of
Catherine de Real, a descendant of the heroic Ray-
mond de Real, who, when Podesta of Avignon, de-
fended the city during the great siege by Louis VIIL
She married into the house of Sade. The official
catalogue describes the flower held in Catherine's
hand as a pomegranate blossom, but M. Bayle,

1 See p. 292.

-" Les Portraits de Laure," Bullethi de Faucluse, 1880, pp.
227-251.

V'tllenein 'e-lh- Ai ngnon

evidently no botanist, believes it to be a poppy
(^papaver rhacai) and consequently a play upon her
name — real, being Provencal for poppy. 434 has
neither artistic nor biographical interest. The
natural history museum, where the remains of the
Requien collections will be found, is entered from
this room.

Skction VIII

ViLLENEUVE-LES-AviGNON

The royal city of Villeneuve, although geographi-
cally and politically sundered from Avignon and the
County Venaissin, was socially and economically
bound up with the papal city. The same reason that
to-day impels the rich citizens of Avignon to dot
the hills of Languedoc with their summer villas was
operative in papal times, and popes and cardinals and
prelates loved to build their summer palaces on the
opposite bank of the Rhone. We may cross by a ferry
that plies at the foot of the Rocher des Doms, skirt
the Isle dc Barthelasse, and continue by the new stone
bridge, or we may travel by the little omnibus that
starts from the Place de I' Hotel de V^ille and lumbers
over the two bridges and along by the Tower of
Philip the Fair, and finally sets one down in the Place
before the collegiate church of Notre Dame de
Villeneuve. How silent and neglected arc the streets ot
this once wealthy and important city ! How degraded
its monuments, how faded its glory ! In the hot,
dusty afternoon, as the cranky old omnibus rattles
along the narrow High Street, it appears to awaken
echoes in a city of the dead.

The church has been recently restored and new

.^3

Avignon

machicoulis now crown its old square tower. Founded
by Cardinal Arnaud de Via and consecrated by his
uncle, John XXII, in 1333, it grew in importance
with the papal occupation of Avignon, and early in the
fifteenth century church and cloisters were enlarged.
If the traveller find the church closed, let him walk
round to the west front and ring for the sacristan at

A STREET CORNER, VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON

the entrance to the Ecole Chretienne in the Place du
Chapitre, who will display to his admiring gaze the
chief treasure of the church : the ivory virgin and
child presented by Cardinal Arnaud de Via, and known
as the Vierge de Villeneuve, which has figured in so
many exhibitions in France : it is one of the most
precious examples of fourteenth-century ivory carving,
and still retains its original chromatic decoration. A

374

Villeneuve-lh- Avignon

double-headed virgin in stone is also shown, and
below the high altar a fine seventeenth-century relief
of the Dead Christ : a carved chair in marble that
belonged to the abbots of St. Andre may also be seen
to the right of the altar. The monumental effigy
of the founder, in alabaster, lies in the second chapel
on the north of the nave. Pictures by Mignard,
Philippe dc Champaigne and other artists are also to
be noted. The old canons' cloisters, damp and evil-
smelling, and in a sad state of dilapidation, may be
entered to the left of the west portal of the church, or
from the high street under a fortified portal, which
opens on a vaulted passage still decorated with the
arms of Arnaud de Via.

From the church we will make our way along the
quaint old Rue des Arcades, and on our right soon
find the entrance to the Hopital, where the small
Musee de Villeneuve is installed. We ring, and are
led by a Gardienne to view the tomb of Innocent VI
and a small collection of paintings. The fine sepul-
chral monument of the founder of the Chartreuse is
in the traditional Gothic style, and, although restored,
is the best preserved of the papal tombs of the
Avignon period. Its story is a chequered one.
When seen by Mcrimce in 1834 the monument
was in the possession of a poor vine-grower and
used as a cupboard : casks were piled up against it,
and all the beautiful alabaster statuettes had been
destroyed or sold.^ Another visitor of the period
saw the tomb in use as a rabbit hutch. At Meri-
mee's vigorous protest the monument was rescued,
restored, and placed in the Hospice.

Interest in the gallery of paintings centres in the
famous Coronation of the Virgin by Enguerrand
' Three are in the Musee Calvet.

375

Villeneuve-rcs- Avignon

Charonton, which evoked so much discussion at the
Exhibition of Primitifs in I'aris (No. 71), where it
was regarded as of capital importance in the history
of European art. Its date and authorship are in-
controvertible. Long attributed to King Rene, it
subsequently became accepted as a work by Jean van
Eyck, and later was ascribed to Van der Meere. A
happy discovery by the Abbe Requin in 1S89 of the
original contract for painting the picture, drawn up
in the spicer's shop of Jean Brea at Avignon, between
a priest, fean de Montagnac, and Master Enguerrand
Charonton {M agister E)igueraudiis Qiuirtou), of Laon,
and dated April 24, 1453, has finally established the
paternity of the picture, and incidentally thrown a flood
of light on the relations between painter and patron
in the fifteenth century. Little freedom was left to
the artist. Every detail is specified, narrowly and
precisely, as in a contract for building a house, and
in order that the artist may have no excuse for not
following the specification, the details are written in
French, whereas the terms of the contract are in
Latin. First, there was to be the representation of
a Paradise, and in this Paradise must be {t^oit estre)
the Holy Trinity. There is to be no difference
between the Father and the Son, and the Holy
Ghost must be in the form of a dove. Our Lady
is to be crowned by the said Holy Trinity, and the
vestments are to be rich ; that of Our Lady is to be
cloth of white damask, figured as may seem best to
the said master. The disposition of the angels and
archangels, the cherubim, seraphim, prophets, patri-
archs anci saints is specified in elaborate detail :
moreover, all the estates of the world arc to be
represented in the Paradise. Above Paradise are
to be the heavens, with sqn and moon, and the

377

Avignon

Church of St. Peter and the walls of Rome are to
be figured over against the setting sun ; and at the
issue of the church is to be a pine cone of bronze : ^
thence spacious steps are to descend to the great
piazza, and a street is to lead to the bridge of St.
Angelo, with houses and shops of all kinds. The
castle of St. Angelo must be also seen and many
churches ; the Tiber is to be shown starting from
Rome and entering the sea ; and on the sea are to
be a certain number of galleys and ships. Beyond the
sea must be figured part of Jerusalem : first, the
Mount of Olives and the Crucifixion of my Saviour,
and a Carthusian in prayer at the foot of the Cross ;
and a little further, the sepulchre of my Saviour, and
an angel saying : Starexit, non est hie. At the foot of
of the sepulchre shall be two [persons] praying ; and
at the right side, the Vale of Jehosaphat, between
two mountains, and in the valley a church with the
tomb of our Lady, and an angel saying : Jssumpta est,
etc., and there shall be a figure praying at the foot
of the tomb. On the left is to be a valley, wherein
are three persons of one and the same age, and from
all these three shall shine forth rays of the sun, and
there shall be seen Abraham coming out of his tent
and worshipping the said three persons, saying
Domine si itnrni, etc. ; on the second mountain shall
be Moses tending his sheep, and a young girl playing
the pipes, and our Lord in the burning bush, and our
Lord shall say : Moyses, Moyses, and Moses shall answer
yissum. And on the right side shall be Purgatory with
angels leading forth rejoicing those that are going
to Paradise, whereat the devils shall show forth great
grief. On the left side shall be Hell, and an angel is

1 The "pina di San Pietro a Roma" referred to in Dante,
Jnf., XXXI. 59.

Villeneuve-les- Avignon

to be seen comforting the souls in Purgatory. Then
in the part where Hell is shall be a devil, very
hideous, turning his back to the angel and casting
certain souls into Hell which other tievilsare handing
to him. In Hell and Purgatory too, all estates of the
world are to be represented according to the judg-
ment of the master. The saici picture is to be
painted in fine oil colour, and the blue must not be
German blue but fine blue of Acre ; ^ German
blue may, however, be used on the border. The
gold used for the picture and the border must be fine
burnished gold. The said master is to display all his
science in the representation of the Holy Trinity and
the Blessed Virgin, and the rest may be painted
according to his conscience.'^ On the reverse of the
picture is to be painted a fine cloth of crimson
damask figured with fleurs-de-lys. The said master
is to have the said picture faithfully done by St.
Michael's Day, and to be paid 120 florins at 24
soldi to the florin, of which sum the master had
received 40 florins on account ; the balance is to
be paid — 20 florins when the picture was half
finished ; 40, according to the rate of the progress of
the work thereafter ; and the remaining 20 florins
when the picture was completed and delivered at the
Carthusian Church.^

How faithfully Master Enguerrand fulfilled his
contract may be seen in the picture before us, clumsily
restoreci though it be.

1 A'zur J' Acre (Ultramarine).

^ Evidently allowing the employment of assistants in tiic less
important parts of the composition.

•* Doc, inSdits sur Ics Pcintrcs, etc., par I'Abbe Reciuin. No. 8.
Pactum de pingeiuio unum retabulum f»Q domino Johanne Montan/tacii,
firesbicero, Paris, 1899.

379

Avignon

The remainder of the paintings need not detain us
long ; a sentimental St. Rosaline, by Pierre Mignard,
and a Descent from the Cross, by Simon de Chalons,
are, however, worth the traveller's attention. The
author of the Guide Joanne bids the visitor place an
offering in the box of the hospital ; we found the

J

-_~i

COURTYARD OF THE HOTEL DE CONTI,
VILLENEUVE-I.ES-AVIGNON

Gardienne strongly preferred the palm of her hand
as a receptacle.

Returning to the Grande. Rue, and making our
way northward, we pass the restored seventeenth-
century portal of the palace of the sainted Cardinal
of Luxembourg ; the weather-worn, neglected, late
Renaissance portal of the so-called Hotel de

3«Q

Villenein 'e-les-Ai ^ignon

Conti ; the ruined Gothic portal of the palace ot
Cardinal Pierre de Thury, through \shich we pass
to the old court-yard and a chapel subsequently
restored and now used as the chapel of the Grey
Penitents. We pass many another relic of departed
grandeur, and beyond the Place Neuve on our right
come upon a great portal which opens on a vaulted
passage leading to one of the most bewildering and
extraordinary congeries of ruined monastic buildings
in France, now inhabited by a population of poor
folk — two hundred families, it is said- — who, since the
Revolution, have settled in the vast buildings of the
once famous and opulent Charterhouse of V'illeneuve.
Founcied by Innocent \'I, three years after his
elevation to the papal chair, and enriched by sub-
sequent endowments, the Charterhouse of the Val de
Benediction, the second in importance of the Order,
grew in wealth and importance during the centuries
until it was sacked anti sold in small lots during the
Revolution to the ancestors of the present occupants.
'Fhe circuit of its walls was a mile in extent ; its
artistic treasures were prodigious. The Coronation
of the Virgin we have just seen, came thence ; the
Pieta of Villeneuve, now in the Louvre ; the founder's
tomb ; the high altar of Notre Dame at Villeneuve,
and a few other relics, alone survive of its vast pos-
sessions. The scene resembles nothing so much as a
city ruined by bombardment or earthquake, but how
long the wreck will remain in its present picturesque
and melancholy condition is difficult to forecast. The
state is slowly buying out the owners, and doubtless
ere many years are passed the more valuable artistic
remains will have been swept and garnished and
restored. The Concierge — courteous and bright as
all French gardiens are — will lead us through the Cour

381

Avignon

hors Cloture, to the north of which stood the smithy,
the granaries, the stables, the poultry farm, the kitchen
garden, the olive-press, the mills, the workshops, the
servants' quarters, the wood-store, the bakery, the
kitchen, and other subsidiary services of a great
monastic community. Before us is the chief entrance
to the monastic buildings — a noble late Renaissance
portal, erected in 1649, '^"'^ surmounted by the in-
scription : DoMUS Sanct^ Mari/e Vallis Benedic-
TioNis. Passing on, we enter the Alice des Muriers,
to north and south of which were granaries and store-
rooms, and, farther north, the cells and cloisters of
the lay brothers, the great cellar, the apothecaries'
hall. At the end of the Allee des Muriers we pass
through a small passage and soon reach the Place de
I'Eglise, where the priors' rooms and the library
were situated. Through the vine-clad porch, with
a portal rebuilt in the Doric style, we enter the old
abbey church — a great, gaping, imminent ruin, open
to the sky. The apse has fallen, and the circular gap
in the west wall was once filled with the beautiful
tracery of a rose window. A curious detail are the
large open jars, or acoustic vases, placed beneath the
windows of the nave, some of which are still in their
places. The primitive church consisted of a single
nave, as in most Avignonnais ecclesiastical architecture,
to the south-east of which Innocent built a spacious
and sumptuous chapel, dedicated to the Holy Trinit)%
where he designed to be buried ; subsequently, chapels
extended to the west end of the church and formed
a south aisle, the whole church having been finished
in 1398. The old belfry still stands near the east
end. To the north-west of the church were the
great cloisters of St. Jean, and the thirty-nine cells of
the Fathers. All that remains of this part of the

382

Villeneuve-lh- Avignon

monastery is the Rotonde de la Fontaine in the old
cloister garden — a curious pseudo-classic domed
construction in the Ionic style, erected late in the
eighteenth century to protect the old fountain from
degradation by weather. To the east of the cloisters
of St. Jean were the refectories, of which a few
ruined walls remain, and to the north of these, the
old pontifical private chapel orientated north and
south.

The frescoes on the walls of this chapel have, by a
lucky chance, been partly preserved. They are the
work of Italian artists, and although much injured
when the chapel was used as a hay barn and recep-
tacle for manure, careful cleaning has discovered some
of the frescoes almost intact, and in some places, the
washing having removed the paint, the original red
outlines traced for the day's work in fresco have
been made visible. The work is of unequal merit :
much of it carefully executed, much hurriedly done
and by inferior hands. The heads were aureoled in
gold, and the hair of the head and beard painted
hair by hair. Money seems to have been lavishly
spent, for the vaultings were painted with ultramarine
and starred with gold. The style and treatment remind
one of the decorations of the chapel of St. Martial
in the papal palace at Avignon, and since it is known
that Mattco di Viterbo worked at Villeneuve in 1345,
the design, though not the execution of the work,
may have been due to that busy artist. The subject
is the life of the Baptist, and the frescoes begin
on the right wall : in some, the inscriptions have
survived, in others they have been obliterated. The
scenes in sequence are : " Appearance of an Angel to
Zacharias" — a poor composition ; "The Birth of the
Baptist," the heads of the new-born infant and the

383

Avignon

mother having been removed ; " The Visitation " —
a well-preserved fresco ; " The Circumcision of the
Baptist " ; " Zacharias writing ' His name shall he
called John.' " On the lower part of the right
wall is the figure of a pope with tiara and nimbus
and three sainted deacons : St. Stephen, St. Law-
rence and another. The upper part of the left wall
was covered with a large composition, and a long
inscription, Matthew xi, 2-7, illustrating the miracles
of Christ. The left portion of the fresco has gone,
but some fine heads remain ; on the right a figure of
Christ standing on a kind of pedestal has almost
wholly disappeared, the feet and a portion of the
dress alone remaining. Smaller subjects below are :
Beheading of the Baptist ; Salome presenting the
Baptist's head to Herodias ; the disciples reverentl)'
laying a headless trunk in a tomb in a garden. This
once beautiful composition is much injured.

Most of the figures, painted on a blue ground, that
decorated the apse have vanished, but among those
that can be distinguished are St. Bartholomew, St.
Paul, St. Andrew, St. fames the Less ; one of the
apostles holding a scroll recalls the figures of the
prophets in the Audience Hall in the papal palace.
In the third bay of the apse is a Crucifixion, with the
Virgin, St. John the beloved disciple, and a bishop
whose head has been removed. This, the finest of the
frescoes, is painted with much simplicity and charm, and
its anonymous author has been somewhat extravagantly
eulogized by M. Reveil as the Fra Angelico of the
fourteenth century. In the lower part of the fourth
bay. Pope Innocent ^'I is seen kneeling before the
Virgin, the tiara by his side : the head has dis-
appeared. On the vaultings are traces of angelic
figures on clouds in a starry blue firmament, and the

384

mMMni:

A R

^t.

Millie fit

cc

385

Avignon

groinings are decorated with trefoil and quatrefoil
designs. The quality of the painting is, on the whole,
below the standard of the chapel of St. Martial ; the
composition is hurried, facile and rather commonplace.
In the miracles of Christ and the figures of the Apostles
are traces of the influence of the Sienese school, and

FORT ST. ANDRE, VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON

it has been plausibly suggested that the Italian master
who contracted to execute the work may have em-
ployed less skilled French artists to carry out his
designs. 1

At the east of the Refectory of the Fathers, and
north of the abbey church, are the remains of a fine
old Gothic cloister, to the east of which was the

' See Gazette Archeologique, 1887, pp. Z()2> et seq,
386

Villeneuve-les- Avignon

chapter house and the sacristans' room and the
sacristans' great well, which still remains. The
barbers' room was near, and farther north the ceme-
tery of the monastery. The visit to these curious
and extensive ruins may end here, and the traveller

^^

yjiHJ»'-

ROTONDE I)E LA FONTAINE, CHARTRKUSE I)E
VILLENEUVE

will depart from the picturesque ruins of five cen-
turies of monastic splendour with an ineffaceable
impression of faded glory.

As we return from the Chartreuse we turn left
along the Place Neuve, and climb to the mighty fort
of St. Andre, which occupies the most venerable site

CC2 387

Avignon

in the royal new city, for on the hill where it stands
tradition relates that St. Cesarie, Bishop of Aries,
was buried, and that there, in the sixth century, the
first Benedictines settled. The primitive settlement,
destroyed in the ninth century, was extensively rebuilt
in 980, and within its walls churches were dedicated
to St. Andrew, St. Michael, and St. Martin. In the
twelfth century the rich and powerful monastery,
a strongly fortified, self-sufficing community, was held
under the counts of Toulouse, and from their over-
lordship it was subsequently admitted by the counts
to be within the territory of the republic of Avignon,
whose consuls in 1210 compelled the abbot to
demolish his walls and promise never to rebuild
them.^

In 1292 Philip the Fair was permitted to settle
a small community there, to whom he accorded in
1293 valuable privileges and the same protection he
granted to his good city of Paris. Philip, to whom
the position was valuable as a frontier post, erected a
castle there, maintained a royal garrison, and the
new settlement became known as the New Town
(Villeneuve). The walls and towers then raised were
rebuilt in 1352 by John the Good, who exacted a
toll, known as St. Andrew's penny, for maintenance
on all merchandise that passed through the Sene-
chaussee of Beaucaire. Of these majestic ruins,
restored in the sixteenth century and again in recent
times, the Tour des Masques ^ at the west angle with
its simple battlements is the oldest portion, the
massive machicolated towers that frown over the main
entrance having been raised by John the Good ; the

•* See p. 21.

- Masca, witch, is Provencal. The tower was said to be
haunted.

388

Villeneuve-les-Avignon

ruined ravelin dates back to the seventeenth century.
We enter and stroll about the desolate interior,
crowned by a tiny Romanesque chapel of the twelfth
century, that well deserves its name of Our Lady of
the Fair View (Notre Dame de Belvczet), with a
graceful apse (restored). From its summit, or from
the tall old watch-tower of the monastery, a mar-
vellous view is obtained of the gaping ruins of the
Charterhouse of Avignon, the County Venaissin, the
Cevennes, Mont Ventoux, and the distant Alps.

In the later years of the monarchy a post of
artillery was stationed in the fort, and it was from
the fire of a battery planted there that a young
captain of artillery, one Napoleon Bonaparte, in
1793, overawed the city of Avignon, which was
occupied by the Marseillais federalists who had de-
clared against the Convention ; and it was with the
cannon seized at St. Andre that Bonaparte marched
to Toulon and expelled the English from its harbour.
The papal sokiiery were ever objects of scorn to the
royalists of Villeneuve, who dubbed them patachines
{petachina, Ital. for slipper), and taunted them with
drilling under parasols — a pleasantry repaid by the
Italians who hurled the epithet luzers (lizards) against
the royalists, who were said to pass their time sunning
themselves against the hot rocks of Villeneuve.

As we make our way back to Avignon we may
pause to visit the old square tower, formerly the keep
of Philip the Fair's fortress, that commanded the
issue of the old Pont St. Benczet ; the tower was
raised a storey, and the machicoulis were added in
the fourteenth century.

389

Avignon

Section IX

No visitor to Avignon, however brief his stay,
should omit the classic pilgrimage to Vaucluse.^ The
dark, mysterious, silent pool at the foot of the pre-
cipitous wall of rock that closes the beautiful valley of
the Sorgue has from time immemorial attracted the
curiosity or evoked the awe of men. The ancients
raised a temple there, and the little Christian church
that probably replaced it was traditionally founded
in the fifth century by St. Veran. Robert the Wise
visited the valley of the Sorgue with his queen in
1 3 19, and it was Petrarch's father and uncle who first
led the precocious boy to behold its marvellous beauty.
But it is the imperishable music of the Rime which
makes Vaucluse sacred ground to-day, and which
throughout the ages has drawn every poetic soul to its
romantic gorge. Alfieri in 1783, on his way to buy
horses in England, turned aside with transport to
visit the magic solitude of Vaucluse, and " the Sorgue,"
he writes, " received many of my tears ; and not simu-
lated and imitative tears, but verily hot, scalding,
heart-felt tears." The ardent lover of the Countess of
Albany was inspired to write four sonnets by the
scene, and passed there one of the most beatific yet most
dolorous days of his life. The lachrymal glands were
easily excited in those days, and the poet continued his
journey "scattering tears everywhere." ^ Wordsworth,

1 Vaucluse may be reached by train to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue,
whence brakes carry the traveller to the village ; or better by
carriage from Avignon, visiting the fortified abbey church of
Montfavet (p. 94) and the beautiful Isle-sur-la-Sorgue with its
shady avenues of senatorial plane-trees and its streets cooled by
five canalized branches of the crystal waters of the Sorgue.

2 Vita, Cap. XII. Per tutto spargendo lacrime.

Vaucluse

on his way to Italy in 1837, was most of all pleased with
the day he spent at Vaucluse, where he was enchanted
with the power and beauty of the stream and the
wildness and grandeur of the rocks.^ There is little
of solitude in the closed valley to-day. A big paper
factory blocks the view as one ascends ; cafes, dancing
and refreshment booths abound, and on Sundays and
holidays a noisy crowd invades the once remote soli-
tude and takes trips on the Sorgue in a motor boat
bearing the immortal Laura's name. But on ordinary
days, once he has left the village and the factory
behind him, the traveller will find the scene pro-
foundly impressive. The Abbe de Sade's description ^
still holds good. " The valley," he writes, " is enclosed
on all sides by rocks in the form of a horseshoe, a path by
the bank of the clear stream, flowing through meadows,
ever green, brings us to the foot of an enormous mass of
rock that menaces heaven, where, when the spring is
low, one can enter the awful darkness of a vast cavern
dug by Nature's hand, near the centre of which is an
oval basin, like a well, forty paces across in its widest
diameter : thence rises the Sorgue, a tranquil surface
of untroubled water, dark to the eye, but actually
clear and limpid. It produces neither moss nor rust ;
it is not good to drink, being heavy and indigestible,
and useful only for tanning and dyeing. Pliny and
Strabo speak of it. On ordinary occasions the spring
passes underground to the bed where the river begins
its course, but towards the spring equinox, and at
other times, after heavy rain, the waters rise on high
before the cave, overflow and dash over the rocks with
a terrific noise until they reach the river." Thus the

^ Letters of the WonUiuorth Family^'WoX, III. p. 129. London,
1907.

* Mimoirci, I. 341, 342.

Avignon

Abbe de Sade. Under normal conditions the pool
lies, a placid little tarn of peacock-blue waters, at the
foot of the beetling crags that block the valley.

And where was Petrarch's hermitage, aspera qucedam
et agrestis P The modern Cafe de Petrarque et
Laure, with its legend that Sonnet cxxix.^
was composed there, may be safely ignored, for if
there is one thing certain in a thorny controversy,
it Is that the poet's house and garden, were on the
left bank of the Sorgue,- and that in the Abbe de
Sade's time every stone that remained of the poet's
house had been carted away. A curious delusion
that the house was situated just below the chateau
of his friend Pierre de Cabassoles, that crowns the
rocky eminence, and whose ruins still remain, was
revived in 1896 by Monclair. In Tomasini's f^/-
rarcha Rediviviis a sketch ^ of its position is given, and
every traveller in the seventeenth and the eighteenth
centuries, down to the publication of the Abbe's
book, appears to have been possessed of that idea,
and a supposed house of Laura opposite was also
exhibited to visitors, with an underground passage
of inter-communication between the two buildings.

In 1557 a Florentine traveller visited the half-
ruined house on the hill, and, pained to behold
the poet's neglected and forgotten dwelling degraded
to a sheepfold, cut in its stone wall the inscription —

Francisci et Laur^

Manibus

Gabriel Symonis

1 Liet't jfiori e fclki, e ben mute erbe,

" De Reb. Fam., VI. 3 ; Fracasscti, Vol. I. p. 335.

3 p. 74.

Vaucluse

\\\ tlic eighteenth century, Casanova, making an
excursion from Avignon to the old ruined house on
the hill, met a large crowd of sight-seers there. He
contemplated the remains with tears in his eyes, and,
flinging himself on the ruins, the arch-scoundrel, with
outstretched arms as if to embrace them, kissed the
stones and wetted them with his tears ; then rising,
he fell on his fricnci Dolci's neck and embraced him
several times. Casanova also was shown Laura's
house near the poet's' — each, of course, no more
genuine than the slobbering tears the rascal shed.

M. Eugene Miintz has recently sought to identify
the site of Petrarch's house and garden by the Sorgue :
he believes them to have been situated on the spot
now occupied by a poor modern cottage at the issue
of the old tunnel in the village, on the left bank
of the stream. The house bears the inscription :
Demeure ct Jard'in de Petrarquc au XlVe siecle.'^

1 Mcmoires, Vol. V. pp. 62-64. I'aris, 1902,

2 La Casa di Petrarca a Valchiusa, Nuova Autologia,
August 16, 1902.

393

APPENDIX I

SONNET FOUND IN LAURa's TOMB

Qui riposan quei caste y felici ossa
Di quella alma gentile y sola in terra
Aspro't dur sasso hor ben teco hai soterra
El vero honor la fama e belta Scossa
Morte ha del verde Lauro svelta e mossa
Fresca radice e il premio de mia guerra
Di quatro lustri : e piu se anchor non erra
Mio penser tristo e il chiude in pocha fossa.
Felice pianta : in borgo de Avignone
Nacque e mori : y qui con ella jace
La penna, el stil, I'inchiostro e la ragione.
O delicate membra, o viva face
Che anchor me cuoci e struggi inginocchione
Ciascun prieghi il Signor te accepti in pace.

O SEXO
Morta bellezza indarno si suspira
L'alma beata in ciel vivra in eterno
Pianga il presente e il futur secul priro
Duna tal luce : y io degli occhi e il tempo.

Abbe de Sade, Memoires, Vol. Ill ;
Pieces Justtficati'ves XI, p. 41.
Sade's copy was made from the
original with great care.

EPITAPH BY FRAN90IS I

En petit lieu compris vous pouvez voir
Ce qui comprent beaucoup par renommee,
Plume, labeur, la langue y le savoir
Furent vaincus par I'aymant de I'aymee.

394

Appendix II

O gentil Ame estant tant estimee,

Qui te pourra lover qu'cn se taisant ?
Car la parole est tousiours reprimce,
Qiiand Ic sublet surmonte le disant.

Sade, MemoireSy Vol. III. ; Pieces
Justijicati'ves, XIII. p. 42.

APPENDIX II

Instructions from the Holy Office in Rome in the matter
of the heretical princes at Avignon in the suite of the
King of England {the old Pretender^

Nella presente contingcnza che si trovano in cotesta
citta diversi personaggi heretici con famiglari della
med^'setta dovra esser a cura di Mons''- Archiv. che
la lore dimora divcnti profittevole alia catt^^ Religione
con la conversione de' med""' o' almeno non riesca
di prejud° alia nostra fede, e di scandolo alii popoli,
che in essa vivono.

Percio Mons. Archiv. dovra stare molto attento
che non si permetta a loro esercitio di religione non
Catolico, nc che si toleri che alcuno ministro o pre-
dicante heretico audisse di far conventicole con li
heretici sud' per coltivare e con9ervare li loro errori
e falsi viti.

Dovra pure essere attento che nelle conversationi
e familiarita coUe persone catoliche non si avanzino
a discorrere in materia di religione con pericole delle
anime, che alle volte facilm"^ s'imbevano piu degli
errori che della verita.

Parimenti dovra esser cura di Mons. Archiv. che
non si avanzino li heretici, e molto meno li catf^' a far
tavola assieme ne' giorni e tempi ne' quali la Santa
echiesa proibisce 1' uso delle carni acciochi I'occasion

395

Avignon

troppo allattina dell' umana ingordigia non dii mostro
di prevaricatione alii Cattolici e di scandolo a tutti.
Nelche m'' concorrera ad avvertire di essere in citta
tutto catolico et in paese immediatamente soggette,
eziando nel temporale, al sumo pontefice e che sarebbe
di un sommo dolore se havesse a sensire a la caduta
e il periculo di alcuna delle anime de' suoi sudditi ;
e finalm'* per prendere in ogni tempo 1' opportunitil
di convertire a Dio et alia una vera fede le anime
traviate et somerse nelle errori, dovra esser avvertenza
delle med° Mons""- Archiv. di usare tutti li modi e
maniere perch^ rechino li heretici pred' ben edificate
da' catf^' di colesta dominio, e ben persuase della
verita della nostra Cattolica Religione, anche col
mezzo di quelle persone che parevano piii propre ad
insinuare senza pericolo nelle loro famigliarita e civile
conversatione.

Bibliotheqiie, Calvet, MS. 2818, fol, 26.

396

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r

INDEX

AnOERRAHMAN, louSSC-f, 13

Adelais, of Avignon, ig

Agricol, St., church of, 74 ; Pe-
trarch and Ricnzi at, 99

Albany, Countess of, 390

Albigenses, origin of, 27 ; de-
feated, 31, 33, 37

Albornoz, Cardinal, 139, 154, 166

Alen.;on, Duke of, 353, 354

Alexander VI, 205

VII, 282

Alphonso, Count of Toulouse, 18

Alphonso, of Castile, 8g, 90

Alphonso the Brave, S9

Alfieri, 390

Andrew, of Hungary, Prince,
affianced lo Joan of Naples,
141 ; at Naples, 142 ; assassin-
ated, 143, 144

Anges, Tour des, 216, 311, 31S

Aquila, Bishop of, 193

Aquinas, 74

Arabs capture Avignon, 14

Armagnac, Cardinal of, 254, 256,

257
Arnaud de Via, 374
" Asile de la Vertu," pastoral,

292
Auditcurs dc la Rote., 60, 224, 314
Augustinian monastery, 344, 346
Avignon, its position, 4 ; legend-
ary foundation, 7 ; early culture
at, 1 1 ; besieged by (iontran, 12 ;
Mumniolus, his treasure at, 13 ;
Arabs masters of, 14 ; captured
by Franks, 14 ; partition of, 18 ;
a republic, 20 ; prosperity of,
20 ; podesta of, 20 ; bridge of, 21-
25 ; Counts Raymond at, 32 ;
siege and capitulation of, 33-36 ;
St. Louis at, 3S, 39 ; end of Re-
public of, 40 ; ceded to Charles
II, of Anjou, 41 ; papacy at, a(i,
47, 59-179 ; poslluiMious trial
of Boniface VIII at, 48 ; Celes-
tin V canoiii/ed at, 48 ; moral
corruption at, 53 ; conclave of,
85 ; pageantry at, 80, 91 ; Rienzi
at, 97 ; Black Death at, 99 ;
English Terror at, 155; Com-
panions at, 157 ; walls of, 157 ;

three kings at, 160 ; bad times
at, 161 ; return of papacy, iS6 ;
Charles VI at, 1S6; Froissart
at, 18S ; return of papacy to,
186; reverts to Benedict XIII,
197 ; Kmperor Sigismund at,
208 ; rejoicings at, 209 ; end of
papacy at, 209 ; media;val life
at, 240-253 ; law and justice,
24i-244,_ 252 ; Jews at, 246-24S ;
craft guilds at, 250 ; plague at,
99, 254-261 ; Huguenots at,

257 ; University of, 261-264 ". an
archbishopric, 265 ; heresy at,
270 ; Holy Office at, 270-272 ;
Jesuits at, 272 ; royal visits,
272-275 ; League of Protestant
Powers meet at, 275-276 ; occu-
pied by Francis I, 276 ; riots at,
277 ; revolution at, 278 ; an-
nexed by Louis XIV, rejoic-
ings at, 280 ; reverts to papacy,
282-284 ; again annexed by
Louis XIV, 2S7 ; famine at,

258 ; population of, 208 ; eight-
eenth century at, 289 ; declared
Italian soil, 289 ; Old Pretender
at, 289-292 ; Young Pretender
at, 292 ; annexed by Louis XV,
292 ; reverts to papacy, 293 ;
final annexation by revolution-
ists, 293

Bandaresi, the, 180

Bari, P.ishop of. Sec Urban V I

Beaucaire, Treaty of, 41

Benedict XI, 43, 44

XII, 72, 76 ; election of, 85 ;

character of, 88, 90, 91-94 ;
death of, 94 ; monument of, so-
called, 300

XIII. See Luna, Pedro de

Benvenuto da Imola, 53

B<iziers, carnage at, 31

Black Art, the, 65-71

Death, ihe, 99

Prince, the, 31, 154, 168

Boachon, Imbert, 337, 340

Boniface VIII, 43, 46, 50, 261

IX, election of, 195

Boson, Duke, 16, 352

+0.3

Index

Boucicault, 198-200
Bourdon, Sebastian, 367
Braquemont, Robert, 202
Bury, Richard de, 84

Cabassoles, Pliilip of, his chateau,

122, 392
Calvet, Dr., 362

Camera parainenti. Sec Recep-
tion hall.
Campane, Tour de la, 220, 221,

306, 310, 328
Canello, Bernard, 217
Cannolati, Bartholomew, 66-70
Capet, House of, 51
Cardinals, their wealth, 77 ; and

munificence, 237
Carmelite monastery, 344, 346
Carobert of Hungary, 140, 141
Carpentras, riot at, 54, 206
Casanova, 393
Catherine de' Medeci, 272, 353,

354 .
Celestms, foundation of, 192

, the, 342, 347, 348

Cervolles, Arnaud de, 156
Cesena, butchery at, 178
Chalons, Simon de, 341, 353, 366,

380
Champaigne, Philippe de, 366,
^375
Champfleuri, 99, 254, 255, 256,

258, 260
Chapel, papal, of John XXII,

213
, private, of Clement VI, 223 ;

new chapel of, 223, 317
Chapelier, Bertrand, 227
Charles I, of Durazzo, Duke, 142 ;

abducts M.iria of Naples, 143 ;

'i'.nin by Louis of Hungary, 146

II, of Anjou, 41

II, of Durazzo, 153

IV, Emperor, at Avignon,

IC2, 218

V I, of France, at Avignon, 186

• IX at Avignon, 272

Charonton, Enguerrand, his con-
tract for painting " Coronation
of the Virgin," 377-379

Charterhouse, Villeneuve, 273,
305, 381-387

Chateauneuf des Papes, 306

Chateaurenard, 203

Chester, Bishop of, 80

Chigi, Cardinal, 281

Clement V chosen Pope, 44; Coro-
nation, 45 ; removes Curia to

404

Avignon, 47 ; death, 49 ; his
pontificate, 50-52

Clement VI, election of, 95 ; char-
acter of, 96, 97, 137 ; and Rienzi,
97 ; death of, 137 ; his love of
art, 231

VII. See Geneva, Robt. of

Clergy, corruption of, 268

Cloisters, the, 328

Coligny, Admiral, 270

C olonna, Giovanni, Cardinal, 84,
358

, Jacopo, 83, 85

, Stefano, 84

, vice-legate, 282, 284, 286, 310

Companies, the Great. See
Companions

Companions, the, 30, 154, 15=; ;
capture Pont St. Esprit, 158,
160 ; defeat royal army, 162 ;
at Villeneuve, 163 ; excommu-
nicated, 161, 166; employed by
the Church, 166

Company, the White, 159

Cond6, Prince of, 257, 353, 354

Consistory, Hall of, 207, 218,

^219 . '

Cordeliers. Sec Franciscans.

Corot, 370

Coypel, Antoine, 368

Coysevot, 337

Crillon . Ic Brai'C, statue of, 304

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, their
views on palace frescoes, 315
note, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326

Crown, papal, dual and triple, 76

Crusaders, the, 30

Cucuron, William of, 60

Cumberland, Duke of, 361

Danes, ravages of the, 16
Dante, 50, 55, 58, 70, loS, iii,

126, 136
Daubigny, 370
David, Jacques Louis, 368
Deveria, Eugene, 300, 369
Dominic, St., 29
Dominicans, the, 346
Domnolus, Bishop, 11
Durance, the, 3, 306

Edward II, 51
^—111,154

Ermengarde, Princess, 16
Evelyn, 2

Famine, 288

Faust, Goethe's, quoted, 105, no

Index

F^libres, the, 294, 296

Felix V, 209

Florin, papal, value of, 75-78

Foiidi, Conclave of. 185

Forcaliiuier, Counts of, 17, 18, 20

France, desolation of, 156

Francis I at Laura's tomb, 114;
composes sonnet, 114 ; at Avig-
non, 266; his persecution of
Protestants, 267 ; sei/es Avig-
non, 271 ; at Notre Dame des
Doms, 299

Franciscans, the, 52, 61-63, 347,

Froissart robbed at .-Vvignon,

188-iQO
Froment, Nicholas, 365

Cache, Tour de la, 226, 310
Garde Robe, Tour de la, 217, 223,

3". 3'7
Geneva, Cardinal Robert of, later

Clement VII, 173, 178, 181, 184 ;

elected pope, 185 ; sails for

Avignon, 186 ; deathbed, 195 ;

burial, 196
Gcnevre, Mont, 3, 136
G<5rard, Baron, 369
G^ricault, Jean Louis, 370
Gherardo, Petrarch's brother, 80,

82, 119
Giovanetli, Mattco, 231-234, 318,

383
Glacicre, Tour de la, 219, 293, 311
Grasshopper, its symbolic mean-

'iiR. 309
Gregory- XI, election of, 171 ;

bans the Florentines, 172; his

vow, 175 ; loaves for Rome, 177 ;

death of, 179
Grimaldi, Hishop, his bravery,

269 ; his tomb, 302
(irimoux, Jean Alexis, 368
Guesclin, IJertrand du, 163, 164
Guillermin, crucifix by, 357, 371
Ciuise, Duke of, 353, 354

Hawkwood, John, 159, 178, 179

Heine, 49

Henry of Navarre, 353, 354

of Trastaniarc, 163

Ill, 2, 273, 353

VII of Luxembourg, 40, 51

Henrys, the four, 354

Hereford, Bishop of, canonized, 74

Holy Office, the, 270 ; and Jacobite
Protestants, 290-291, and Ap-
pendix II

Hoiiorius III, 33
Honour, Court of, 314
Hotel Baroncelli-Javon, 363

Crillon, 361

de Conti, 381

de Montreal, 361

des Monnaies, 304

de Ville, the new, 358

de Ville, the old, 359

de Villeneuve. See l\Ius6e

Calvet
Huguenots, 257, 268

Innocent the Great, 29, 33

VI, election of, 137 ; builds

walls of Avignon, 157 ; death of,

159; tomb of, 375
Inquisition, the, 28

, legends of, 3H, 312

Inquisitors, 271

Jacquemart, 358-360
Jesuit College, 349
Jesuits, the, 272, 286, 292
Jews, the, 246-248, 251, 256, 288
Joan of Naples, Queen, her mar-
riage, 141, 143 ; her character,
142 ; invested with crown, 143 ;
suspected of husband's murder,
144 ; flies to Avignon and defends
herself at the Curia, 146; sells
Avignon to the papacy, 148-150 ;
her trial, 151 ; declared inno-
cent, 152; her death, 153; her
physician a Jew, 248 ; portrait,
so-called, 324
John, Good King, at Avignon,
160, 218

XIII, Pope, 17

XXII, election of, 56 ', char-
acter of, 57, 60, 74 ; at Avignon,
59 ; charged with heresy, 71 ;
recants, 72 ; death of, 74 ; his
wealth, 74, 78 ; monument of,
301, 302

XXIII, 205, 207, 208

Julius II. .9ev Rovere, G. della
Justice, Hall of, building of, 223 ;
frescoes in, 314-316

Kitchen, the great, 219, 220, 311
Knollys, Robert, 157

Landor, W. S., 144
Largilliere, Nicholas, 368
l.ascaris, Vice-Legate, 279, 280,

281
Latrines, Tour des, 219

+05

Index

Laura, 84, 100, loi ; meeting with
Petrarch, her story, 101-113;
her death, 109, 112 ; her identity,
111-116; alleged tomb of, 113,
114 ; and portraits, 230, 299,
324, 372 ; and hoube, 393

Laurana, Francesco, 342

Laurent, Tour de St., 227, 311

Lebrun, Vig^e, Mme., 369

Lenain, the brothers, 366

Lepanto, 269

Levieux, 302

Limoges, destruction of, 169

Liz'ri'es, the, 59

Loubieres, Jean de, 223, 224, 225,
227

Louis, of Anjou, 190, 191

n, of Anjou, 203

, of Bavaria, 61, 63-65, 83,85,90

, of Hungary, King, 143 ;

accuses Joan of murder, 145 ;
avenges Andrew's death, 145,153

, of Taranto, Prince, 142 ;

marries Joan of Naples and
escapes to Avignon, 145 ; made
King of Jerusalem, 146; bru-
tality to Joan, 152

VIII, 33-351 350

X, 55

XIII, 275

XIV annexes Avignon, 281,

287 ; rebukes citizens of, 283

, St., 38, 39

Lucius III, Pope, 28

Luna, Cardinal Pedro de, later
Benedict XIII, 183, 185; elected
pope, 197 ; his character, 197,
198 ; besieged in papal palace,
199-201 ; escapes, 203 ; his
triumph, 204 ; attempted poison-
ing of, and death, 210

, Rodrigo de, 199, 205

Lyon, Corneille de, 366

Mar, Earl of, 289

Maria of Naples, 141, 146

Marie de' Medici, 275

Maries, the, 8, 9

Martel, Charles, 14

Martin V, 209

Masons, signs, meaning of, 334

Mazarin, Cardinal, 275

Mazzini, 126

ISlemmi, Simone, 112; arrival at
Avignon, paints frescoes and
Laura's portrait at, 230

M^rimde, Prosper, 299, 303, 316,
333, 375

Mignard, Nicholas, 302, 344, 361,
367, 375

, Pierre, 302, 367, 380

Mill, John Stuart, 334, 335

, Mrs. 334

Mint, the. See Hotel des Monnaies

Mirepoix, Pierre de, 213

Mistral, 3, 4, 9, 116, 144

, F, 295, 296, 358

Mistral, the, 6

Moliere, at Avignon, 289

Monnaies, Hotel des, 304

Montfavet, church of, 94

Montfort, Simon de, 30, 31, 32

Musee Calvet, 361-373 ; sculpture
at, 364 ; Primitifs Franqais at,
364-366 ; French schools, 365-
369 ; Italian school, 370-371 ;
Spanish school, 371 ; Dutch
and Flemish schools, 371 ; anti-
quities, 371 ; Guillermin, crucifix
by, 371 ■> bust attributed to
Donatello or Desiderio da Set-
tignano, 371

Nantes, Edict of, revocation of,

286
Napoleon, 293
— — at St. Andr<^, 389
Nicholas V, anti-pope, 64
Niem, Theodoric of, 184, 192
Notre Dame des Doms, 60, 265,

297-303

Occam, William of, 63
Orange, 257, 269 ; arch of, 299
Orimond, Duke of, 289
Orsini, Cardinal, 182
, ^fapoleone, 55, 56

Pal/one, game of, 218
Palace, Apostolic. See Palace,
Papal

, old episcopal, 60, 87

, new episcopal, 60, 87

, Papal, 87 ; siege of, 199-201 ;

second siege of, 205-207 ; build-
ing of, 211-230; decoration of,
231-239 ; last history of, 294 ;
visit to, 309-329
, Pierre de Thury, Cardinal,

381 .
Papacy, its humiliation, 194
Papal chapel, old, 327, 328
Paris, peace of, 37 ; Raymond VII

at, 37
Parpaille, Pernnet, 269, 340
Parrocel, Pierre, 302, 341, 344, 368
Pazzi, conspirators, 265

406

Index

Pedro the Cruel, i6t
Peironi,Sieur, punislied for lieresy,

271
Penitents, the Black, 356-357

, the Orey, 350-352, 381

, the White, 273, 276, 352-356

, tlieir processions, 357, 358

Perigord, Countess of, 50
Petracco, Ser, at Avignon, 80
Petrarch, his vituperation of
Avignon, 52 ; at Carpentras, 55,
80, 81; at Avignon, 80; at
Montpellier, 81 ; liologna, 81 ;
returns to Avignon, 82 ; at Lom-
bez, 84 ; and I'enedict XII, 93;
and Kienzi, 99, 127, 128 ; meets
Laura, 101 ; vicissitudes of
passion for, 101-113; at Vau-
chise, 120-135 ; clinil>s Mont
Ventoux, 117-120; his gardens,
121-124 ; literary activity, 124-
126; befriends Kienzi, 132;
worrietl by poetasters, 134 ; final
departure for Italy, 136; at St.
Agricol, 337 ; reference to, 359 ;
so-called portraits, 372 ; house
of.. 392. 393 .
Philip the Fair, 41, 43, 46, 49, 55,
57 ; tower of, 373, 388, 389

V, 56

VI, 90, gi

Pius VII, 351

Place Carnot, 339, 341, 344, 356

de r Hotel de Ville, 337

des Carnies, 344

des Corps Saints, 348

du Change, 280, 361

du Cloitre St. Pierre, 341

Pie, 269, 346

St. Didier, 361

St. Pierre, 339

Plague, the, 254-261

Poicticrs, Philip of, 207

Pont if A't'ifinon, Roniie du, 308

Porte de I'dulle, demolition of, 332

de la Republiciue, 334

^— du Rhone, 329, 334, 355

Limbert, demolition of, 332

Notre Dame, 225, 312

Piitrarque. Sec Porte de la

Ripublique

St. Domeniqne, 334

.St. L.azare, 334

St. Michel, 331

Pluralism, 79

Pretender, the Old, 289-292
— ;-, the Voung, 292
Prignano, Francesco, 193

Proven(;al a dying tongue, 296
Provence, Count of, 261
Poussin, Caspar, 367
Puget, 302

Randon, Seigneur de Joyeuse, 205
Raymond, Count, of Barcelona, 18

, Count, of St. Giles, 17, 18

VI of Toulouse, 29-33

VII, 33; his penance, 37;

death, 40

, friar, 173-177

Reception hall, 217
Regnault, Jean IJaptiste, 367
R<;-nu, King, 3.J2, 347, 365, 377
Requien, Ksprit, 363
Revolutionists annex Avignon
and the Venaissin, 293 ; loot
cathedr.1l, 299 ; seize pictures, 362
Rhone, the, a great highway, 1-3 ;
and political boundary, 15 ; view
of, 305 ; its ravages, 331
Richelieu, Cardinal, 275
Rienzi, Cola di, at Avignon, 97 ;
dictator at Rome, 127-129; his
letters to Avignon, 127 ; his fall,
129, 130; prisoner at Avignon,
132; set free, 133; again at
Rome, 139; his death, 139;
prison of, 222 ; at St. Agricol,

337
Robert of Naples. See Robert

the Wise
the Wise, 48, 52, 65, 140, 141,

143, 390
Rocher des Doms, 117

, I'romenade du, 305

Roger, Hugh, Cardinal, his hoard

of gold, 78
Rome, anarchy at, 58, 86, 138

, desolation of, 167, 168

, riotous conclave of, 181

Rothbold, 17, 18
Kotttiers, the, 30
Rovere, (jiuliano della. Cardinal,

262, 265, 303, 331
Rue Hanasterie, 311, 356

des Kludes, 264

des Fourbisseurs, 34t, 361

des Lices, 349

des Marchands, 337

du Change, 360

du Vieux Sextier, 341

Joseph Vernet, 361

I'eyrolerie, 227, 229, 310, 311

Teinturiers, 350

Vialla, 361

Rupert, Fra, 142

407

Indi

ex

Sade, AbW de, his " Petrarch,"

115 ; at Vaucluse, 391
St. Agricol, church of, 260 ; 336-

337
St. Andr6, walls of, 21, 305 ; fort

of. 387-389
St. Angelo, Cardinal, 33, 35
St. Benezet builds bridge, 21-25

, Bridge of, 307, 308, 309

St. Bridget, 168, 169
St. Catherine of Siena at Avignon,
173 ; interview with Gregory
XI, 174; moves Gregory to leave
for Rome, 175, 177; appeals
for charity, 184 ; for unity,
185 ; appeals to base motives,
194
St. Didier, 291 ; church of, 341-

344^

St. Esprit, bridge of, 2, 3, 25,
158

St. Jean, Tour de, 219, 312, 31S

St. John the Baptist, Chapel of,
322-327

St. Martha, 8-10

St. Martial, chapel of, 219 ; paint-
ing of, 233 ; description of, 318-
322

, church of, 349

St. Nicholas, chapel of, 25, 305,
307, 308

St. Peter's, Cardinal of, 181, 182

St. Pierre, church of, 240, 241,
247. 337-341

St. Pierre de Luxembourg, his
miraculous powers, igi ; canon-
ized, 192 ; relics of, 341

St. Ruf, 10

St. Stephen, church of, 60

St. Symphorien, church of, 344-
346

St. Veran, 390

Sceve, Maurice de, discovers
Laura's tomb (V), 113

Schism, the Great, 185-210

Sigismund, Kmperor, 208, 209

Sixtus IV, 265

Smollet, 2

Sorgue, the, 390, source of, 391

Sorgues, Chateau of, 30, 204

Spolii, Jus, 236 note

Students, their guilds, 262-264

Symonds, J. A., 312, 368

Templars, chapter-house of, 346,

note ; tower of, 346
Tolentino, peace of, 293
Troubadours, 19, 28
Trouillas, Tour de, 218, 221, 222,

28s> 3"
Turenne, Countess of, 96

University, the, 261

Urban V, election of, 159; bans
the Companions, 161, 166; moves
to Rome, 167 ; returns to Avig-
non, 168 ; death of, 170 ; char-
acter of, 170, 171

VL election of, 183 ; his

reforming zeal, 184; his tyranny,
192; and cruelty, 193; his death,
194

Valentinois, Countess of, 175, 176
Vaucluse, 117-126, 130, 131, 134,

135, 291, 306, 390-393
Velutello at Avignon, 113
Venaissin, Couniy, 32, 47 ; ceded

to Holy See, 41, 204, 269, 293,

306
Ventoux, Mount, ascended by

Petrarch, 11 7-1 20, 306
Verdun, Treaty of, 15
Vernet, Claude Joseph, 369

, Horace, 369

Via, Arnaud de, 60, 61, 94, 374,

375

Via, Jacques de, 65, 79

ViUeneuve, Cardinal, 198

Villeneuve, palaces at, 87 ; church
of, 94 ; view of, 305 ; Notre
Dame de, 373-375 ; Vierge de,
374 ; Musire de, 375 ; Charter-
house of, 381-387

Viollet-le-lJuc, 307, 328, 331, 333,
346

Visconti, the, 66-70, 172

Vision, the Beatific, 72-74, 85

Viterbo, riot at, 167

Walls of Avignon, 157, 168, 329,

334
William \, of Provence, 17

II, of Provence, 17, 18

Wordsworth at Vaucluse, 390, 391

Young, Arthur, at Avignon, 4

Richard Clay <fr» Sons, Limited, Lo7uion and Bungay.

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