Avignon

Some one had told me that he had stayed at Avignon for a night while motoring down to the Riviera early in March, and had seen the RhÔne under a full moon from the garden of the Popes' Palace, while the nightingales sang among the trees all around him. This information had been presented to me amidst the dreary days of clouds and thawing snow which come with the end of winter in the Swiss Alps, and the contrast was so entrancing that I had half a mind to make straight for Avignon first of all, by train. I had seen that beautiful garden, and the grand view from its terraces, with the RhÔne rolling its mighty stream down below; the fabled bridge of St. BÉnÉzet still throwing a few arches across it, with its two-storied chapel at the end of them; the forts and towers of Villeneuve a mile away on the other side; and the distant mountains closing in the great expanse of fruitful country. It was a spot to dream of and to long for.

But I think there must have been a mistake about the nightingales; or at least about the month. It was now the twenty-fourth of March, and, although the trees were beginning to break into leaf at last, I heard no nightingales in Provence.

Avignon has a famous inn—the HÔtel de l'Europe—very old, very picturesque, with its archway and flower-grown court. Indeed, it is so much in keeping with all the rest that a stay there serves to heighten the pleasant memories that every visitor must carry away with him of the fascinating city. But on this journey I was on the lookout for something more retiring; and by good fortune I found something as good of its kind as I have ever happened upon.

I walked up the broad Rue de la RÉpublique, with its gay and busy shops, cafÉs and picture palaces, its trams, plane-trees, soldiers and citizens, and all the life and appearance of a modern street, and came to the Place de l'HÔtel de Ville. On either side of this main artery lies the old Avignon, and I knew that I only had to turn aside from it to lose that somewhat disconcerting note of modernity, and perhaps to find my ideal auberge. I found it just off the place, very ordinary outside, and indeed in, but with a host and hostess whose sole aim seemed to be the welfare of their guests, and with cooking that would make the fortune of one of those Soho restaurants that the world occasionally discovers and flocks to for a time. Good wine, too, and all at a price that makes one wonder how these things are done. Find it for yourselves, ye travellers who want to save your pockets, and are content with a clean bed, good fare and a kindly welcome; commend me to madame, and ask her to give you a dish of bouillabaisse.

I went up that evening, past the huge looming mass of the Popes' Palace and the cathedral to that delightful garden, with its dark foliage, gleaming sheets of water, statues and balustrades, and looked out over the RhÔne and the dim country beyond. It is one of those places in which the past of a very old city seems to concentrate its memories. Whatever one knows of its history comes before one, half real; whatever is left of the city itself that is part of its history takes on its old meaning, and whatever is new is forgotten. In this corner of Avignon, the buildings round the great oblong of the Place du Palais, the ancient streets just off it, the huge rocks that lift it high in the air, the ramparts and towers and forts below, the cottages and quays along the river, the half-ruined bridge—all are of the old storied Avignon, and only the garden itself is new, though its newness takes off none of the effect of its surroundings.

The site of this garden was in papal times a barren windswept waste, with windmills and forts, and a cemetery used when Avignon was isolated by floods. When the Rue de la RÉpublique was cut right through the city, the dÉbris was carted up here and mixed with soil from the river banks, and this delightful garden laid out. Shortly after the Crimean war Marshal Canrobert planted an oak among the ilexes and cedars and cypresses that mix their dark foliage with the living green of the deciduous trees, and dedicated the garden to the use of the citizens of Avignon.

It is a charming spot at all times. I found myself continually wandering up there, in the intervals of more serious sight-seeing, or in the early morning before sight-seeing began, or in the evening when it was over. Sight-seeing is really the bane of all beautiful places; one wants to see everything and is glad one has done so afterwards, but the way to enjoy a place is to live one's own life in it, for however short a time, and take the sights as they come. Unfortunately they do not come quickly enough when one has only a day or two to spare for a place that is full of them, and the only way is to make a business of sight-seeing, with whatever intervals of peace one can afford.

I did my duty the next day in spite of the rain that fell intermittently. In retrospect there are churches; crooked mediÆval streets with little shrines in niches of the walls; broader Renaissance streets with handsome buildings; the immense ring of rampart, too big to make any single impression, but effective enough here and there when one found oneself at the edge of the city; the busy modern boulevards, which after a time fail to take away from the impression of the whole as a very ancient and very picturesque city; and the mighty palace so dominating everything that one is hardly ever able to forget it, however far one's wanderings take one.

I think St. Agricol was the first church I visited. It is of the fourteenth century, on a very much older foundation, simple and pleasing, with a late Renaissance memorial chapel, richly and gracefully decorated, and containing some beautiful statuary. Avignon employed many sculptors of note in the days of its wealth and fame, and their work is to be found here and there, sometimes outside of a church and sometimes inside. One learns to look out for it, and gains many a little thrill of pleasure in spotting something true and right and beautiful, among a good deal that is commonplace. The same may be said of the paintings of which the churches are full, but both buildings and pictures are apt to be dark, and without a great deal of trouble it is difficult to pick out the good from the ordinary. Probably the best are in the MusÉe, and some of those are so fine that one is content to enjoy thoroughly a few, and let the rest go by.

St. Agricol was rather busy on the morning I visited it. In one of the side chapels a number of small boys were awaiting their turn at the confessional box. They sat on wooden benches, their bare legs dangling, and occupied themselves as is usual with small boys on their best behaviour, not making too much noise and ready to be diverted by anything in the shape of novelty that came their way. When I came unexpectedly upon them they showed great interest in me, but the opportunities for comment that I afforded were immediately displaced by something much more worthy of attention. The great west doors were opened and a coffin was carried in and laid in the chancel. There was a muttered service lasting a very few minutes, and silverheaded aspersoirs were handed from one to the other of the scant body of mourners. Then the untidy-looking men with their cloth caps on their heads lifted up the coffin and almost ran with it down the church, led by a cocked-hatted functionary whose aim seemed to be to get the whole business over as quickly as possible. It was the briskest funeral I have ever seen.

After that, the church rapidly filled up with crowds of children, and the small boys from the side chapel, relieved of their burdens of sin, clattered in to join the rest. A handsome, cheerful-looking priest mounted the pulpit and began to address them and ask them questions. He very soon had them interested, and the church rang with their eager answers and not infrequent laughter, as he cleverly led them from one point to another, and caught and threw back every word that he drew from them. Just as I was going out of the church a mischievous urchin poked his head in at another door and shouted something opprobrious, then ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. The priest was as ready for this interruption as he had been for the calls of his flock. He said something too quickly for me to catch, and the whole churchful of children shouted their applause.

More beautiful than St. Agricol is the church of St. Pierre. Its fine Gothic front, completed early in the sixteenth century, shows a wealth of delicate carving, and it fronts a picturesque place which enables one to get its full effect. The faÇade is worth examining in detail, with the luxuriant carving, round the portal, of vines and oak leaves and acorns and little figures engaged in all sorts of agricultural pursuits. I did not see the carved sixteenth century doors, which are protected in the same way as those of the cathedral at Aix, but in a niche between them is a lifelike eighteenth century statue of the Virgin and Child—the Mother, tender and matronly, bending forward and holding up her flowing drapery—which is well worth noting. Very attractive is the little plane-shaded Place du CloÎtre, approached under an archway to the north of the church. The old ecclesiastical buildings have been taken possession of by all and sundry, and are alive with the signs of modern habitation—clothes fluttering, gay pot-flowers in windows of old grey stone, children playing under the trees. But it is a sweet and peaceful spot in the midst of a busy city, and its cloistered charm still hangs to it.

I visited this church several times during the days I found myself in Avignon, between journeys. It has the same sort of interest as the churches one goes in and out of in Italy, though to a less degree than the finest of them—a sense of perfection in the whole, and a good deal that is worth looking at in detail. There is a lovely little Gothic pulpit of white stone, with statues of apostles and saints under delicately carved canopies; richly carved and gilded woodwork in the choir, which frames a series of dark but decorative pictures; a Renaissance altar-piece with a relief of the Last Supper; some really fine pictures by the best-known artists of Avignon—Nicholas Mignard, Simon de ChÂlons, Pierre Parrocel, and others. But the most human and pathetic possessions of this church are the cardinal's hat and tunic of St. Pierre de Luxembourg hung up in a glass case in one of the side chapels.

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This infant phenomenon of the Church had won fame in Paris for his learning and piety at the age of nine. At fourteen, already a bishop, he was made a cardinal, and summoned to the papal court at Avignon by Clement VII, in order that his fame might convert the Urbanists to the Clementine obedience. His reputation spread throughout Christendom, and was enhanced by the stories of his extraordinary self-disciplines. The poor child caused himself to be scourged as he was lying on his deathbed, and gave orders that he was to be buried in the common cemetery of the poor. His shroud and vestments were torn to shreds, and even the bier broken into fragments for relics, and countless miracles were wrought by the touch of his body and afterwards at his grave. Three thousand of these were attested by the papal commissioners, not of the common sort, it was explained, such 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."

This boy-bishop was canonized a hundred and fifty years after his death. Now he is forgotten, and his relics hang there dusty and neglected. Baedeker does not even mention them, though Joanne does. There are none of the signs of devotion and remembrance that are shown to saints of popular memory, no candles or other offerings. The Church itself seems to have forgotten him. Has the efficacy of his self-tortured life died out, or is there still virtue in these relics of his princedom, which is there for any one to whom it may occur to draw on it?

In the rather dark church of St. Didier is a notable work of art formerly known as the Image du Roi RenÉ, for whom it was executed. It is a relief in marble representing Christ bearing the Cross, with a figure of the Virgin on her knees in the foreground, and a score or so of other figures, with an architectural background. Its realism is striking, and rather painful, but it should not be missed, for it is one of the earliest sculptures of the Renaissance to be seen in France. High up on the wall opposite to the chapel in which this relief is half hidden is a beautiful Gothic pulpit, or tribune, which is also worth notice. Probably it was not used for preaching from. Mr. Okey in his admirable historical and descriptive account of Avignon, suggests that it was built for the exposition of relics.

St. Didier has a fine tower and belfry, which draw the eye when one looks down upon the roofs of Avignon from the heights above. There are not many left now of the two or three hundred towers that were there before the Revolution, and of the sixty churches or chapels there are only eighteen, not all of which are intact, or used for their original purpose. But there are many curious "bits" still left in Avignon, which one continually comes across as one strolls about the streets—noble fronts of rich mansions, carved porches and doorways, innumerable ancient streets of smaller houses, which have remained almost untouched, and here and there a church or a single tower that has escaped destruction so long that one hopes it will be preserved for ever.

Avignon, indeed, would be interesting enough if its great lions were left out; as it is, they dwarf everything else, and perhaps an apology is needed for dealing with the parish churches before the cathedral and the Palace of the Popes. But before we give ourselves over to the big things of Avignon, let us finish with the smaller.

Every one has heard of the Bridge of St. BÉnÉzet, and the old jingle:

Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse l'on y danse,
Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond.
Les beaux messieurs font Comm' ÇÀ,
Et puis encor Comm' ÇÀ.
Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond.

It was a stupendous work of its time, which even the Romans seemed to shirk; indeed, so great that it was necessary to assign it to a supernatural origin. The story was told by order of Friar Raymond of the Bridge, and sealed by the Pontifical Rectors.

When Benet was a young child and was watching his mother's sheep, the voice of Jesus Christ came to him ordering him to build a bridge over the RhÔne, which until then he had never heard of. An angel in the guise of a pilgrim led him to the place where the bridge was to be built and telling him to cross the river and show himself to the bishop and the townspeople of Avignon, vanished from his sight.

The ferryman was a Jew, and scoffed at his prayer to be taken over the river for the love of God and Our Holy Lady Mary, but Little Benet gave him the three farthings which were all his worldly wealth, and he ferried him across.

Little Benet interrupted the bishop's sermon by announcing his mission. He was led to the provost of the city to be chastised, and announced it also to him. The provost reviled him but said that if he could carry away a certain stone which he had in his palace he would believe that he could build the bridge. The bishop and all the townspeople looked on while he raised the stone, which thirty men could not have moved, as easily as if it were a small pebble and carried it away to form the foundation stone of his bridge.

So, with a gift of money from the repentant provost, and more from the townsfolk, and with the usual miracles of healing and raising the dead to life, the bridge was begun, and Little Benet hailed as a true saint.

The pretty story, which is given in full, translated from the ProvenÇal, in Mr. Okey's book need not be rejected entirely. There was a Little Benet, as well as a Great, and he was instrumental in building the bridge. For he was chief of a community of Friars Hospitallers founded at Maupas, near Avignon, in 1164, "to establish ferries, build bridges, and give hospitality to travellers along the rivers of Provence."[14]

One of the most attractive exhibitions of religious feeling in the Middle Ages, among a good many that are not at all attractive, was this undertaking of works of necessity by men of piety who believed that they were doing service to God by doing service to men. "Travellers were considered as unfortunates deserving pity," says M. Jusserand in his "English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages," in which there is much interesting information about the building and preservation of roads and bridges, "and help was given to them to please God."

Thus, when Henry VIII gave the lands of the dissolved monastery of Christ Church to Canterbury Cathedral, he declared that he made this donation "in order that charity to the poor, the reparation of roads and bridges, and other pious offices of all kinds should multiply and spread afar." It is probable that the FrÈres Pontifes, taking their pattern from the Collegium Pontificum of Rome, owed their Christian impetus to St. Benet of Avignon, for his is the first society of its kind that is known, though it was soon copied all over Europe. It took him eleven years to build the bridge, and he also built the chapel of St. Nicholas that still stands upon it. He was buried in this chapel, and his body remained there for five hundred years. But the great floods of 1669 so shook the structure that his remains were translated to a chapel at the end of the bridge, thence to the church of the CÉlestines, and finally at the Revolution, into the church of St. Didier.

Is it too fanciful to suppose that there is some foundation in fact for the legend of his beginning his great work as a child? I like to imagine him filled with his great idea as he walked by the side of the RhÔne as a boy, talking about it and being laughed at, gradually forming a strong purpose, and finally bringing it to a triumphant issue. It reminds me of Dickens, as a poor child, passing the mansion of Gad's Hill and making up his mind that he would some day live there.

The bridge passed through many vicissitudes. It was much quarrelled over, and seems to have been kept in fair repair whenever the Church's rights in it were recognized, but let go when it was in the hands of the laity. It has been in ruins now for two hundred and fifty years, but the few arches that remain show how well Little Benet and his bridge-builders did their work; and as it stands now it is one of the most picturesque features of the beautiful city.