AVIGNON.

Leaving Marseilles, the place at which I tarried next was Avignon, where I had comfortable and cheap quarters at the HÔtel Grillon. It was there I saw the only drunken man that came under my notice in France. It was market-day, and the town was full of country-folk, many of whom came to my hotel for the excellent dÉjeuner provided for guests; amongst then was an individual—not a farmer, for he did not wear a blouse—who managed, in spite of the fact that he had had quite enough, to consume the quart bottle of vin ordinaire which, in French country hotels, every one is supposed to take at lunch and drink. The allowance was too much for me. The lunch in every case was so excellent and tempting that I could not manage another heavy meal, and was glad to content myself with tea. One thing surprised me at all the country hotels, and that was the predominance of the military element. At every meal there were great numbers of officers present, and, so far as I could judge by the way in which these sons of Mars did justice to the good things provided, all in first-rate physical condition. Avignon is full of soldiers—we met them everywhere. All round the place the old walls seemed turned into barracks.

I stopped at Avignon to see the burial-place of John Stuart Mill. He was fond of Avignon, and spent a great deal of his life there. I am afraid, on the whole, he was rather a hard, cold man. He had a sister living in Paris, but, often as he passed through it, he never went to see her. I suppose he had learnt a good deal from Godwin’s ‘Political Justice,’ which had a great influence at one time among superior people, I remember, when I read it many years ago. You never see the book now. Godwin shows how wrong is the indulgence of social and family affection. Perhaps the philosopher’s way of looking at such things is the right one, after all. As I was sitting with a friend, a philosopher, on board the Midnight Sun, a gentleman, to whom we were neither of us particularly attached, passed us. ‘I think I could save that man’s life,’ I said. ‘Why should you?’ he asked; ‘ought we not to think of the greatest happiness of the greatest number?’ The reply was irresistible, and I acquiesced. ‘Is it not the survival of the fittest,’ I asked myself, ‘that best accords with Nature’s scheme? “If,” says Godwin, “you are in a boat with your father and a philosopher, and you meet with an accident, you are to save the philosopher and leave your father to perish.”’

Mill’s philosophy seems to have been of a similar character. At any rate, his sister’s husband complained much, to an acquaintance of mine, of the philosopher’s neglect. But his worship of Mrs. Taylor, who afterwards became his wife, was intense. They sleep together in the same grave in the cemetery, a mile or two out of Avignon. On the tomb is the inscription: ‘John Stuart Mill, born 20 May, 1806, died 4 May, 1873,’ and that is all. On the surface of the tomb—a plain white flat one—is a long eulogium of his wife, who had died before him. Her influence, the inscription records, has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be felt in time to come. Following her life, we are told, this earth would become the type of heaven. Her death is described as ‘an irreparable loss.’ The grave is separated by an iron rail from the rest, and is fringed with a few evergreens. It is plain and simple, and certainly much more in accordance with English taste than the rest.

One should visit the cemetery, if only to see what a French cemetery is—all glitter and glass, for many of the flowers placed on the tombs are under glass, and the place was quite dazzling in the summer—or, rather, the autumn—sun. The ground is carefully laid out, and well planted with trees and flowering shrubs. It seems to me of considerable extent, and people come there every day to place fresh flowers on the graves of those they love. It was early in the morning when I was there, yet a good many ladies were engaged in their pious work. By most of the graves were chairs placed for the mourners, who love to repair to such a place. It is evident that family affection is strong in France.

Avignon, I should think, is a pleasant place in which to reside, with its mild atmosphere and a nice country all round. There is a broad promenade (if a short one), with a monument to a native worthy, and trees; The Castle of the Popes, Avignon. From Cassell’s ‘Cities of the World.’ but away in the interior the streets are narrow and ill-fashioned. It boasts a cathedral, a museum, and an HÔtel de Ville, and tramcars run backward and forward all day long. In the early days of the French Revolution it was all for union and the ‘Contrat Social’ of the worthy Jean Jacques Rousseau; and yet it burst forth with its 15,000 brave brigands, headed by Jourdain. In 1789 the French Assembly declared that Avignon and the Comtat were incorporated with France, and that His Holiness the Pope should say what indemnity was reasonable.

‘Papal Avignon,’ writes Carlyle, in his wonderful ‘French Revolution,’ ‘with its castle rising sheer over the Rhone-stream; beautifullest town, with its purple vines and gold-orange groves; why must foolish old rhyming RÉnÉ, the last sovereign of Provence, bequeath it to the Pope and gold tiara—not rather to Louis XI. with the Leaden Virgin in his hatband? For good and for evil! Popes, Antipopes, with their pomp, have dwelt in the Castle of Avignon rising sheer over the Rhone-stream; there Laura de Sade went to hear Mass; her Petrarch twanging and singing by the Fountain of Vaucluse hard by, surely in a most melancholy manner.’

Speaking of Petrarch, naturally one’s thoughts turn to Rienzi, the Italian liberator, who fell because the Roman people were not at that time prepared for freedom. ‘When,’ writes Lord Lytton, in his splendid novel, ‘Rienzi,’ ‘the capital of the CÆsars witnessed the triumph of Petrarch, the scholastic fame of the young Rienzi had attracted the friendship of the poet—a friendship that continued, with a slight exception, to the last.’Rienzi was one of the Roman deputies who had been sent to Avignon to supplicate Clement VI. to remove the Holy See back to Rome. It was on this mission that Rienzi for the first time gave indication of his extraordinary power of eloquence and persuasion. The pontiff, indeed, more desirous of ease than glory, was not convinced by the arguments, but he was enchanted with the pleader, and Rienzi returned to Rome laden with honours and clothed with the dignity of high and responsible office. No longer the inactive scholar, the gay companion, he rose at once to pre-eminence amongst all his fellow-citizens. Never before had authority been borne with so austere an integrity, so uncorrupt a zeal. He had thought to impregnate his colleagues with the same loftiness of principle, but in this respect he had failed. Now, secure in his footing, he had begun openly to appeal to the people, and already a new spirit seemed to animate the populace of Rome. According to modern historians, Petrarch and Rienzi went to Avignon together, but, says Lord Lytton, it was more probable that Rienzi’s mission was posterior to that of Petrarch. However that may be, it was at Avignon that Petrarch and Rienzi became most intimate, as Petrarch observes in one of his letters. Perhaps it would have been better for Italy and better for the Roman Catholic Church had they never returned to Rome. If the reader doubts this, let him read Zola’s ‘Rome.’ It was in 1309 that Clement moved his Court thither, and for sixty-eight years, until 1377, Avignon continued to be the Papal residence. The six successors of Clement V., all of them Frenchmen, like himself, were regarded by the Italians with feelings of dislike and contempt. They were little more than the ecclesiastical agents of the French monarchy.

The climax in the history of Avignon was reached when, in 1309, Clement V. removed thither from Rome, and made Avignon the seat of the Roman Pontiff and the metropolis of Christendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhone—the position of Avignon, writes Gibbon, was at all times accessible—the southern provinces of France do not yield to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the accommodation of the Pope and Cardinals, and the arts of luxury were soon attracted by the treasures of the Church. A part of the adjoining country had long belonged to the Popes, and the sovereignty of Avignon was purchased from the youth and distress of Jane, the first Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence.

Under the shadow of the French monarchy, amidst an obedient people, the Popes enjoyed a tranquillity to which they had long been strangers. Italy deplored their loss, but the Sacred College was filled with French Cardinals, who regarded Rome and Italy with abhorrence and contempt. What remains of the Papal Palace is now turned into barracks, of which you get a good view from the station as you leave for Lyons or Paris. Dr. Arnold, who paid it a passing visit, was struck with horror by the sight of its dungeons. From Avignon the Pope prosecuted a bitter persecution of his neighbours, the Waldenses. The King of France was alarmed, and sent an officer to inquire into the matter. The report was favourable. ‘Then,’ said the King, ‘they are much better Christians than myself or Catholic subjects, and therefore they shall not be persecuted.’ He was as good as his word, and the Pope at Avignon had for a time to forbear, or Avignon might have had as bloody a record as Rome itself. But at Avignon they do not think of these things. All round the old city are the mulberry trees and the silkworms; and the farmers want protection for their native industry, and to keep foreign raw silk out of the market.