NOTRE DAME DES DOMS D'AVIGNON It would be difficult to say with precision whether Avignon were more closely connected in the average mind with the former papal splendour, with Petrarch and his Laura, or with the famous Félibrage. Avignon literally reeks with sentimental associations of a most healthy kind. No probable line of thought suggested by Avignon's historied and romantic past will intimate even the mawkish, the sordid, or the banal. It is, in almost limitless suggestion, the city of France above all others in which to linger and drink in the life of its past and present to one's fullest capacities. For the "literary pilgrim," first and foremost will be Avignon's association with Petrarch, or rather he with it. For this reason it shall be disposed of immediately, though not in one word, or ten; that would be impossible. [Illustration: _Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon_] "'The grave of Laura!' said I. 'Indeed, my dear sir, I am obliged to you for having mentioned it,'" were the words with which the local bookseller was addressed by an eighteenth-century traveller. "'Otherwise one might have gone away, to their everlasting sorrow and shame, without having seen this curiosity of your city.'" The same record of travel describes the guardian of this shrine as "a converted Jew, who, from one year's end to another, has but two duties to perform, which he most punctually attends to. The one to take care of the grave of Laura, and to show it to strangers, the other to give them information respecting all the curiosities. Before his conversion, he stood at the corner by the Hôtel de Ville offering lottery tickets to passers-by, and asking, till he was hoarse, if they had anything to sell. Not a soul took the least notice of him. His beard proved a detriment in all his speculations. Now that he has become a Christian, it is wonderful how everything thrives with him." At the very end of the Rue des Lices will be found the last remains of the Église des Cordeliers--reduced at the Revolution to a mere tower and its walls. Here may be seen the spot where was the tomb of Laura de Sade. Arthur Young, writing just before the Revolution, described it as below; though since that time still other changes have taken place, with the result that "Laura's Grave" is little more than a memory to-day, and a vague one at that. "The grave is nothing but a stone in the pavement, with a figure engraved on it already partly effaced, surrounded by an inscription in Gothic letters, and another on the wall adjoining, with the armorial bearings of the De Sade family." To-day nothing but the site--the location--of the tomb is still there, the before-mentioned details having entirely disappeared. The vault was apparently broken open at the Revolution, and its ashes scattered. It was here at Avignon, in the Église de St. Claire, as Petrarch himself has recorded, that he first met Laura de Sade.