The silent flowing river with unruffled surface breaks into sound as it rushes past these remaining piers. The gurgling swish of the hurrying waters and the sparkling little ripples occasioned by the resistance of the solid masonry, are the only breaks in the calm monotonous silence with which the river makes its way down the great flat valley to the sea. The ancient bridge is deserted, “all the world” no longer dances, if ever it did attempt such a feat, upon the parapetless ten-foot way; and the ancient rhyme—
“Sur le pont d’Avignon, tout le monde danse, danse,
Sur le pont d’Avignon, tout le monde danse en rond,”
would to-day be more applicable to the little white ripples that dance and sparkle in the sunlight as they burst forth from under the venerable archways. Fifteen other arches continued the bridge in days gone by, but the townsfolk got tired at last of continually making good the damage unceasingly inflicted by their enemies upon this highway, and since the latter part of the eighteenth century it has remained the fragment that one sees to-day.
The Bridge of Avignon when it completely spanned the Rhone was not complete without its legend, a pretty little Provençal story that has lasted until to-day. The simple folk of Avignon relate how a little shepherd boy from Viverais, higher up the river, heard of the many accidents which befell the inhabitants, who had no other means of crossing the Rhone save by boats, accidents which resulted in great loss of life. This little shepherd, highly favoured by the Saints, was, like Joseph of old, a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions—dreams and visions that roused and inspired him to go to the rescue of the hapless folk whose lives were in peril every time they crossed the rapids of the Rhone in their frail craft. Making his way on foot along the river bank to Avignon, he presented himself to the Bishop of the town; told him of his dreams and urged him to construct a bridge. Unfavourably received both by the Bishop and the Provost, the former laughing at and the latter chastising him, he demonstrated the inspired nature of his mission by carrying to the river bank with his unaided hands a huge boulder of rock to serve as the foundation-stone.
This miraculous act, together with his passionate pleading, roused the townspeople, and without further delay the bridge was commenced. Poor Benezet, dying before his life-work was completed in 1177, was canonised by the grateful inhabitants, who have since done full justice to the little shepherd boy to whom the town owed one of its most useful glories and lasting treasures. A tiny chapel dedicated to St. Benezet stands upon the first pier of the ancient bridge, and mass is still said there every 14th of April, the Saint’s Day.
A lot of water has flowed under the arches of the bridge since the days when brave knights in shining armour, proud priests in sumptuous robes, poets, painters, soldiers, courtiers, and the thousand and one mortals of commoner clay passed over the realised dream of the shepherd lad. It has served its turn, and now belongs entirely to the bygone age of chivalry and romance.
One of its contemporaries still exists near the Avignon of to-day—the ruined church of St. Ruf that stands on the Tarascon road just outside the city walls. It is all that is left of a twelfth-century monastery, built by some canons of the Cathedral, who, on separating from their brother clergy, retired to this spot, whither an ancient oratory, said to have been founded by St. Ruf, attracted them. The Sanctuary and tower, or belfry, are all that remain of the once extensive series of buildings, but the carved capitals of the columns and fine bold apse bear evidence that it was a church equal in beauty of workmanship to the Cathedral itself.
The buildings already mentioned are the oldest in Avignon, for the ramparts that exist to-day replace the older ones which were destroyed after the great siege in 1226. This siege was one of the last incidents in a war which for wellnigh twenty years wrought devastation throughout the southern provinces of France.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century there existed a sect known as the Valdenses, or Albigenses, which had become so strong that Princes and Nobles were embracing its tenets to the vexation of the Papacy. What exactly were the beliefs of these heretics it is difficult to determine, as the accounts handed down to us come from prejudiced sources.
There were those who alleged that the Albigenses professed a distorted Christianity, grafted on to a degraded pagan mysticism, whilst others, and amongst these were some of the persecutors, averred that nothing could be more Christianlike than their behaviour or more blameless than their lives. Claud, Archbishop of Turin, testifies that they were “perfect, irreproachable, without reproach among men, addicting themselves with all their might to the service of God.”
Whatever were their beliefs they held them strongly, and were prepared to suffer for them even to the death; but more probably it was their determined opposition to and contempt for the Papal Hierarchy that brought down upon them its most bitter hatred and unrelenting oppression. The sect was particularly strong in Languedoc, and from the town of Albi in that province they took their name. The conflict of the faiths at last reached such a pitch that the imperious Pope Innocent III. found it necessary to take steps to preserve his spiritual authority.
A crusade was proclaimed, and all Christendom was urged to take up arms under the Pontifical banner for the suppression of the heretics. Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, an independent sovereign, who, whilst in no way sharing their beliefs, was averse to joining Rome in a war upon his own subjects, refused the Papal appeal for assistance, and was promptly excommunicated. The awful Ban of the Church was pronounced upon him by a Legate named Peter of Castelnau, and one of Raymond’s followers, in an excess of loyalty, put an end with his sword to any such utterances from the same source in the future. The assassination of his representative thoroughly enraged the Pope, who issued a Bull imputing that Raymond was influenced by the devil, and urging all the counts, barons, and knights of Southern France to pursue his person and occupy and retain his domains.
Thus was the cupidity of adventurous knights appealed to, and whilst the legions of the Church ostensibly fought for the upholding of the faith, Raymond of Toulouse was forced into the position of defending his inheritance. Prompted by fear or contrition, or perchance a mixture of both, Raymond underwent a most humiliating penance in his anxiety to propitiate the enraged Innocent. Strong indeed must have been the motive which induced so powerful a prince to submit to being stripped naked from head to foot, save for a linen cloth round his waist for decency’s sake, and being thus led nine times round the pretended Martyr’s grave in the Church at St. Gilles, his naked shoulders chastised the while with rods. The penance was accepted and Raymond was absolved, but his possessions had already been divided amongst the crusaders, of whom Simon de Montfort was Chief. The Comtat Venaissin was made over to the Papal See, a transfer in which the inhabitants of the independent town of Avignon who sided with Raymond did not concur.
Through endless sieges the fortunes of the contending factions continually fluctuated. Simon de Montfort, now Count of Toulouse, succeeded in obtaining the re-excommunication of Raymond; but the latter never forsook the practices of the Holy Church, and with true humility continued to perform his devotions at the doors of edifices whose thresholds he was forbidden to cross. At the siege of Toulouse in 1216, death put an end to the crusading career of de Montfort, but the struggle went on as bitterly as ever. Every victory of the Papal forces continued to be celebrated by a massacre of the vanquished.
Raymond