ocrat Camp of Jales, that wondrous real-imaginary Entity,
now fading pale-dim, then always again glowing forth deep-hued (in the
Imagination mainly);--ominous magical, 'an Aristocrat picture of war
done naturally!' All this was a tragical deadly combustion, with
plot and riot, tumult by night and by day; but a dark combustion, not
luminous, not noticed; which now, however, one cannot help noticing.

Above all places, the unluminous combustion in Avignon and the Comtat
Venaissin was fierce. Papal Avignon, with its Castle rising sheer
over the Rhone-stream; beautifullest Town, with its purple vines
and gold-orange groves: why must foolish old rhyming Rene, the last
Sovereign of Provence, bequeath it to the Pope and Gold Tiara, not
rather to Louis Eleventh with the Leaden Virgin in his hatband? For good
and for evil! Popes, Anti-popes, with their pomp, have dwelt in that
Castle of Avignon rising sheer over the Rhone-stream: there Laura
de Sade went to hear mass; her Petrarch twanging and singing by the
Fountain of Vaucluse hard by, surely in a most melancholy manner. This
was in the old days.

And now in these new days, such issues do come from a squirt of the pen
by some foolish rhyming Rene, after centuries, this is what we have:
Jourdan Coupe-tete, leading to siege and warfare an Army, from three
to fifteen thousand strong, called the Brigands of Avignon; which title
they themselves accept, with the addition of an epithet, 'The brave
Brigands of Avignon!' It is even so. Jourdan the Headsman fled hither
from that Chatelet Inquest, from that Insurrection of Women; and began
dealing in madder; but the scene was rife in other than dye-stuffs; so
Jourdan shut his madder shop, and has risen, for he was the man to do
it. The tile-beard of Jourdan is shaven off; his fat visage has got
coppered and studded with black carbuncles; the Silenus trunk is
swollen with drink and high living: he wears blue National uniform with
epaulettes, 'an enormous sabre, two horse-pistols crossed in his belt,
and other two smaller, sticking from his pockets;' styles himself
General, and is the tyrant of men. (Dampmartin, Evenemens, i. 267.)
Consider this one fact, O Reader; and what sort of facts must have
preceded it, must accompany it! Such things come of old Rene; and of the
question which has risen, Whether Avignon cannot now cease wholly to be
Papal and become French and free?

For some twenty-five months the confusion has lasted. Say three