NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13347, 29 November 1906, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE PALACE OF THE *; POPES.

" Wi.vdy Avignon," the City of the Mistral, " La Ville Sonnante," the City of Bells, as Rabelais called it, is rich in varied and many-coloured associations. In the Church of the Cordeliers, demolished in 1791, was the tomb of Petrarch's Laura; in the Church of St. Claire the poet first saw his mistress; a house in the stretch of meadows and market gardens lying between the Rhone and the Vaucluse Road was long the loved retreat of John Stuart Mill, and he lies in the neighbouring cemetery. The passionate " meridional" nature made wild work here in the "Red" and the "White" Terrors. It was only after bloody scenes that the city was united to France in 1790, and the Provencal Royalists wreaked a terrible vengeance on Marshal Brune in 1815. But it is the colossal" Palace of the Popes," feudal castle and half-monastery, that dominates its history. When Philip IV. of Prance had dethroned and outraged Pope Boniface Vlll.—when, as Dante exclaimed, " Christ, in the person of His Vicar, was a second time seized by ruffians, a second time mocked,; a second time drenched with the vinegar and the gall"—he procured the election of a Frenchman. Clement V., and ordered, him to reside at Avignon.- The city was bought from Joanna of Naples in 1348 for a price of 80,000 crowns in gold, which she never received. "Palace of the Popes" was begun by Clement V., but his works were swept away to make room for the weird, irregular pile which was erected on the design of Benedict XII. It is this palace which the French Government proposes to restore. The restoration was promised as long ago as 1875, but it is only now, that the troops, which have had possession since 1815, have been withdrawn. Its halls, in which conclaves of cardinals once assembled, are broken up into soldiers' cubicles. It is to the nation, and not to the Catholic community, that the palace/ when the traces of desecration have been removed, is to be presented. After all, .there are no memories about Avignon that Catholics need desire to cherish. The Papal Court in its exile became a by-word. And not only does Avignon recall the worst epoch in the history, of the Church, but it is inseparably connected with the great schism, with the degrading strife of Popes and anti-Popes. ;" Rome cried out against the corruptions of Avignon; and Avignon, j with equal..justice, recriminated on Rome." j The brightest memories of the spot are not even French. It was in a dungeon of the palace that Rienzi, the "Roman Tribune," chained by the waist to a pillar, consoled himself with his Bible and his Livy. And to tins palace Petrarch used to come from his retreat at Vaucluse, an honoured guest, but resolutely declining the offers of a high public career. AN AGE OF EPICUREAN EDUCATION. - Addressing a large gathering of East Lancashire clergy at Blackburn, the Bishop of Manchester said that students of modern educational theories could not fail to be impressed by their epicurean ideals. Every-

thing was to be done to give children & c?U good time in their childhood, 1 .>=»■*» u*J were to be cared for; nurses, doctors, ,4n< dentists were to wait upon them, to - games were to be organised during % ■--. lion as well as in school life, they f .fe ti bit fed and clothed at the public eartjenser punishments were almost abolished, h*Hd<v camps and seaside schools for town children were advocated ami maintained, theif path through childhood was to be, as far as they could make it, a pathway of flowers with no thorns, no frosts, no storms. Modern educational aims were epicurean to the very core. The stoic and the spartan wot reckoned as barbarians. There was very litti*» room in these theories for the stern,'factt of sin and suffering which religion fjced md endeavoured to explain, quite apart fmtn religious controversy. A school of 'In- • sophy was creeping in. which left little roim for religion in a child's life. The voice of duty was heard with difficulty in the wodd of pleasure.