if we do not at first see
his city with the same eyes as he does. To those who know Avignon be it
to say who has best described it, the historian or the novelist.

It is but just to assert in the first place that Avignon is a town
by itself, that is to say, a town of extreme passions. The period of
religious dissensions, which culminated for her in political hatreds,
dates from the twelfth century. After his flight from Lyons, the valleys
of Mont Ventoux sheltered Pierre de Valdo and his Vaudois, the ancestors
of those Protestants who, under the name of the Albigenses, cost the
Counts of Toulouse, and transferred to the papacy, the seven chateaux
which Raymond VI. possessed in Languedoc.

Avignon, a powerful republic governed by podestats, refused to submit
to the King of France. One morning Louis VIII., who thought it easier
to make a crusade against Avignon like Simon de Montfort, than against
Jerusalem like Philippe Auguste; one morning, we say, Louis VIII.
appeared before the gates of Avignon, demanding admission with lances at
rest, visor down, banners unfurled and trumpets of war sounding.

The bourgeois refused. They offered the King of France, as a last
concession, a peaceful entrance, lances erect, and the royal banner
alone unfurled. The King laid siege to the town, a siege which lasted
three months, during which, says the chronicler, the bourgeois of
Avignon returned the French soldiers arrow for arrow, wound for wound,
death for death.

The city capitulated at length. Louis VIII. brought the Roman
Cardinal-Legate, Saint-Angelo, in his train. It was he who dictated the
terms, veritable priestly terms, hard and unconditional. The Avignonese
were commanded to demolish their ramparts, to fill their moats, to raze
three hundred towers, to sell their vessels, and to burn their engines
and machines of war. They had moreover to pay an enormous impost, to
abjure the Vaudois heresy, and maintain thirty men fully armed and
equipped, in Palestine, to aid in delivering the tomb of Christ. And
finally, to watch over the fulfillment of these terms, of which the bull
is still extant in the city archives, a brotherhood of penitents was
founded which, reaching down through six centuries, still exists in our
days.

In opposition to these penitents, known as the "White Penitents," the
order of the "Black Penitents" was founded, imbued with the spirit of
opposition of Raymond of Toulouse.

From that day forth the religiou