Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
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
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 Belvézét), with a graceful apse (restored).
From its summit, or from the tall old watch-tower of the monastery, a
marvelous view is obtained of the gaping ruins of the Charterhouse of
Avignon, the County Venaissin, the Cévennes, Mount 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 declared against the Convention; and it was with the cannon
seized at St. André that Bonaparte marched to Toulon and expelled the
English from its harbor.
The papal soldiery were ever objects of scorn to the royalists of
Villeneuve, who dubbed them "patachines" ("pestacchina," 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.
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
"gardien du pont," who will admit us to all that remains of the
miraculous pontifical structure of the twelfth century. The destructive
hand of man and the assaults of the Rhone have dealt hardly with St.
Benezet'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 necesary repairs, or to undertake them himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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