chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars,
and glasses on it; its household implements and scraps of dress
against the wall; and a sober-looking woman (she must have a
congenial life of it, with Goblin,) knitting at the door – looked
exactly like a picture by OSTADE.
I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, and
yet with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which
the light, down in the vaults, had given me the assurance. The
immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous
strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building,
its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous
irregularity, awaken awe and wonder. The recollection of its
opposite old uses: an impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, a
horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the Inquisition:
at one and the same time, a house of feasting, fighting, religion,
and blood: gives to every stone in its huge form a fearful
interest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I could
think of little, however, then, or long afterwards, but the sun in
the dungeons. The palace coming down to be the lounging-place of
noisy soldiers, and being forced to echo their rough talk, and
common oaths, and to have their garments fluttering from its dirty
windows, was some reduction of its state, and something to rejoice
at; but the day in its cells, and the sky for the roof of its
chambers of cruelty – that was its desolation and defeat! If I had
seen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt that
not that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, could
waste it, like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber, and its
prisons.
Before I quit this Palace of the Popes, let me translate from the
little history I mentioned just now, a short anecdote, quite
appropriate to itself, connected with its adventures.
‘An ancient tradition relates, that in 1441, a nephew of Pierre de
Lude, the Pope’s legate, seriously insulted some distinguished
ladies of Avignon, whose relations, in revenge, seized the young
man, and horribly mutilated him. For several years the legate kept
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
HIS revenge within his own breast, but he was not the less resolved
upon its gratification at last. He even made, in the fulness of
time, advances towards a complete reconciliation; and when their
apparent sincerity had prevailed, he invited to a splendid banquet,
in this palace, certain families, whole families, whom he sought to
exterminate. The utmost gaiety animated the repast; but the
measures of the legate were well taken. When the dessert was on
the board, a Swiss presented himself, with the announcement that a
strange ambassador solicited an extraordinary audience. The
legate, excusing himself, for the moment, to his guests, retired,
followed by his officers. Within a few minutes afterwards, five
hundred persons were reduced to ashes: the whole of that wing of
the building having been blown into the air with a terrible
explosion!’
After seeing the churches (I will not trouble you with churches
just now), we left Avignon that afternoon. The heat being very
great, the roads outside the walls were strewn with people fast
asleep in every little slip of shade, and with lazy groups, half
asleep and half awake, who were waiting until the sun should be low
enough to admit of their playing bowls among the burnt-up trees,
and on the dusty road. The harvest here was already gathered in,
and mules and horses were treading out the corn in the fields. We
came, at dusk, upon a wild and hilly country, once famous for
brigands; and travelled slowly up a steep ascent. So we went on,
until eleven at night, when we halted at the town of Aix (within
two stages of Marseilles) to sleep.
The hotel, with all the blinds and shutters closed to keep the
light and heat out, was comfortable and airy next morning, and the
town was very clean; but so hot, and so intensely light, that when
I walked out at noon it was like coming suddenly from the darkened