towards our carriage,
and seizing my hand, even shed tears of joy. Joseph had been travelling
through Spain, and was so imbrowned by the sun, that he might have
passed for an Iroquois. I was much pleased with the marks of gratitude
which the poor fellow expressed towards his benefactors. He had some
private conversation with our voiturier, whose name was Claude, to whom
he gave such a favourable character of us, as in all probability
induced him to be wonderfully obliging during the whole journey.

You know Avignon is a large city belonging to the pope. It was the
Avenio Cavarum of the antients, and changed masters several times,
belonging successively to the Romans, Burgundians, Franks, the kingdom
of Arles, the counts of Provence, and the sovereigns of Naples. It was
sold in the fourteenth century, by queen Jane I. of Naples, to Pope
Clement VI. for the sum of eighty thousand florins, and since that
period has continued under the dominion of the see of Rome. Not but
that when the duc de Crequi, the French ambassador, was insulted at
Rome in the year 1662, the parliament of Provence passed an arret,
declaring the city of Avignon, and the county Venaiss in part of the
ancient domain of Provence; and therefore reunited it to the crown of
France, which accordingly took possession; though it was afterwards
restored to the Roman see at the peace of Pisa. The pope, however,
holds it by a precarious title, at the mercy of the French king, who
may one day be induced to resume it, upon payment of the original
purchase-money. As a succession of popes resided here for the space of
seventy years, the city could not fail to be adorned with a great
number of magnificent churches and convents, which are richly
embellished with painting, sculpture, shrines, reliques, and tombs.
Among the last, is that of the celebrated Laura, whom Petrarch has
immortalized by his poetry, and for whom Francis I. of France took the
trouble to write an epitaph. Avignon is governed by a vice-legate from
the pope, and the police of the city is regulated by the consuls.

It is a large place, situated in a fruitful plain, surrounded by high
walls built of hewn stone, which on the west side are washed by the
Rhone. Here was a noble bridge over the river, but it is now in ruins.
On the other side, a branch of the Sorgue runs through part of the
city. This is the river anciently called Sulga, formed by the famous
fountain of Vaucluse in this neighbourhood, whe