From its
summit, or from the tall old watch-tower of the monastery, a marvelous
view is obtained of the gaping ruins of the Charterhouse of Avignon, the
County Venaissin, the Cevennes, Mount Ventoux, and the distant Alps.
In the later years of the monarchy a post of artillery was stationed in
the fort, and it was from the fire of a battery planted there that a young
captain of artillery, one Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1793, overawed the city
of Avignon, which was occupied by the Marseillais federalists who had
declared against the Convention; and it was with the cannon seized at St.
Andre that Bonaparte marched to Toulon and expelled the English from its
harbor.
The papal soldiery were ever objects of scorn to the royalists of
Villeneuve, who dubbed them "patachines" ("pestacchina," Ital. for
slipper), and taunted them with drilling under parasols--a pleasantry
repaid by the Italians who hurled the epithet "luzers" (lizards) against
the royalists, who were said to pass their time sunning themselves against
the hot rocks of Villeneuve.
Descending the stately stairway that leads to the foot of the Rocher des
Doms, and turning to the left, we soon reach the house of the "gardien du
pont," who will admit us to all that remains of the miraculous pontifical
structure of the twelfth century.
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