Avitus of Vienne

“ When King Gundobald gave form and shape to the battle ordeal in digesting the Burgundian laws, Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, remonstrated loudly against the practice as unjust and unchristian. A new controversy arose on the occasion of the duel between the Counts Bera and Sanila, to which allusion has already been made as one of the important events in the reign of Louis le Débonnaire. St. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, took advantage of the opportunity to address to the Emperor a treatise in which he strongly deprecated the settlement of judicial questions by the sword ”

“ There is an Italian look about the vines trellised on trees, and festooned under the tiled roofs of the little riverside châlets.
The approach to the ancient city itself is very striking. A light suspension-bridge spans the river-banks just where Vienne faces the village of St. Colombe, ancient as itself. On the right we see the massive old town built by Philippe de Valois; to the left, behind the houses, crowded together pell-mell, rises the massive pile of Vienne Cathedral. Here another tributary, the Gère, flows into the Rhône. Vienne was reputed a fosterer of poetry in classic times. ”

“ When at last they did come, the Romans transformed the town into a great city—the metropolis of the region lying between Geneva and Marseille; and so adorned it with noble buildings—temples, forum, circus, theatre, aqueducts, baths—and so enriched it with all manner of works of art, that it came to be known as Vienne the Beautiful throughout the civilized world. One temple, approximately perfect, has survived to us from that time; and one statue—the famous Crouching Venus: and it seems fair enough to accept Vienne's beauty as proved by these. ”

“ The archbishops disputed with those of Lyons the title of “Primate of All the Gauls.” Vienne was conquered by the Burgundians in 438, and in S34 was taken by the Franks. Sacked in 558 by the Lombards and in 737 by the Saracens, the government of the district was given by Charles the Bald in 869 to a certain Count Boso, who in 879 was proclaimed king of Provence, and was buried on his death in 887 in the cathedral church of St Maurice. Vienne then continued to form part of the kingdom of Provence or Arles till in 1032 it reverted to the Holy Roman Empire. ”

“ A sanguinary and covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere conversion: let him shew his faith by his works." The answer of Avitus, bishop of Vienna, who spoke in the name of his brethren, was delivered with the voice and countenance of an angel: "We are ignorant of the motives and intentions of the king of the Franks; but we are taught by scripture that the kingdoms which abandon the divine law are frequently subverted; and that enemies will arise on every side against those who have made God their enemy. ”

“ There are numerous other industrial establishments (paper mills, iron foundries, brick works, refining furnaces, &c.) .
Vienne was originally the capital of the Allobroges, and became a Roman colony about 47 B.C. under Caesar, who embellished and fortified it. A little later these colonists were expelled by the Allobroges; the exiles then founded the colony of Lyons (Lugdunum) . It was not till the days of Augustus and Tiberius that Vienne regained all its former privileges as a Roman colony. Later it became the capital of the Provincia Viennensis. ”

“ Every one shows a readiness to offer all his fortune, being convinced that after such an alliance the government cannot fail to meet its engagements."
The Viennese have a very lively imagination, and bounding from one extreme to another, they began to form visions of the Austrians waging wars of ambition and conquest along with the French. They fancied that their Emperor and his son-in-law would have all Europe at their feet. "The greater their enthusiasm about the French," wrote Count Otto in the same despatch, "the more evident the old animosity of the Austrians against Prussia and Russia. ”

“ The sun went down, the lamps were lit, the alleys were illuminated, the crowd increased, and the emperor himself could not have given a gayer evening’s entertainment.
Vienna has the reputation of being the most profligate capital in Europe. Perhaps it is so. There is certainly, even to a stranger, no lack of temptation to every species of pleasure. But there is, besides, a degree of simplicity and confidence in the manners of the Viennese which I had believed peculiar to America, and inconsistent with the state of society in Europe. ”

“ French villages are none too clean at any time and rain does not seem to help them. Attractive old castles on neighboring hilltops received hardly a glance; even one overhanging our very road barely caused us to check up. How old it looked in its wet desolation, the storm eating into its crumbling walls! [Pg 165]
We pulled up at last at Vienne, at the end of the bridge facing the cathedral. History has been written about Vienne, and there are monuments of the past which it is not good form to overlook. ”

“ Whilst the king of the Visigoths fought and vanquished in the name of Avitus, the reign of Avitus had expired, and both the honour and the interest of Theodoric were deeply wounded by the disgrace of a friend whom he had seated on the throne of the Western Empire.
The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded the emperor Avitus to fix his residence at Rome, and to accept the consulship for the ensuing year. Avitus, at a time when the imperial dignity was reduced to a pre-eminence of toil and danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of Italian luxury ”

“ Vienne was divided into three towns:—Vienne the strong, containing the citadel; Vienne the rich, the town proper; and Vienne the beautiful, on the right side of the Rhone (now called St Colombe) , where many fine works of art have been found. During the later Empire Vienne continued to be a place of great importance, not unfrequently the residence of the Emperors, and played a prominent part in the numerous revolutions of the times.
It was also the cradle of Christianity in the West, which, as tradition relates, was there founded by St Paul on his way into Spain. ”

“ Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youth he had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, the bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits of his female favorites. The wars of France and England were adverse to the holy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and the Greek ambassadors returned with two Latin bishops, the ministers of the pontiff. On their arrival at Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios admired each other's piety and eloquence ”

“ It ought to be said that for this memorable gathering no other city would have answered so well. Vienna is in reality the centre of Europe; at that time it was its capital. A Viennese who had happened to leave the city a few months before would have had some difficulty in identifying himself and his familiar surroundings amidst that new, gilded, and titled population which crowded the place at the time of the Congress. All the sovereigns4 of the North had come thither; the West and the East had sent their most notable representatives. The Emperor Alexander, still young and brilliant ”

“ There was great joy in Vienne and all the neighbouring country when the news of the peace was spread abroad. Smiling faces were everywhere to be seen, and happiest of all was perhaps Kaiser Karl himself. A few days later a time was fixed for the public 400 betrothal of Roland and Auda. Great preparations were made, and all was done to make the day a joyful one. ”

“ Vienna was the high-water mark at which the progress of the Turkish flood was stayed. The Turks beat upon its ramparts in vain; they were flung back from its walls like ocean waves from the cliffs of a rocky coast. In the old cathedral you may see a huge bell cast out of cannon captured from the Turks in the last of their sieges. For centuries Vienna has been the frontier city between the Eastern and Western peoples of Europe.
On the very day of the murders at Sarajevo the Emperor Franz Josef left Vienna for his summer holiday at the beautiful watering-place of Ischl, [23] in Upper Austria. ”

“ The cathedral of Vienne is of sandstone, and has decayed accordingly. The west end, which was very rich, and is rich still, has suffered from corrosion in the upper part; but a firmer, less friable sandstone was fortunately employed for the lower stage, in which is the richest sculpture, and that is fairly perfect. Murray pooh-poohs this west front: "It is rich in flamboyant ornaments, but they are clumsy and without delicacy." The sculpture was adapted to the material, and any other would not have looked well. ”

“ Watered by this stream of gold, Avignon flourished. John was generous to his family and his cardinals: palaces began to rise above the lowly roofs of the town: a gay and coloured life filled its streets. A Papal household costing £25,000 a year would of itself make an impression. We know Avignon best in the later and even richer days of Benedict XII. and Clement VI. who followed John. Not far away, even in the days of John, dwelt a writer who was destined to immortality, and he passed scathing criticisms on Avignon. ”

“ He consorted but little with men of his own age, he neither gambled nor drank, and he was said to be proof against all the attentions of women. Whether this was really so or not, such a reputation was, in itself, enough to pique curiosity and excite interest in Vienna, where feminine intrigue spreads its endless network among the roots of an aristocratic society. Add to this, the stern, sad expression of the young man's handsome face, and his reluctance ever to talk about himself, and the mystery with which it pleased the Viennese world to invest him, could no longer be a matter of surprise. ”

“ Vienna, the capital of Austria, heart and centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The city is surrounded by the Danube and its canals, and has several parks and numerous shady avenues of trees, beneath which the gay Viennese love to stroll or sit at the tables of outdoor cafés listening to the bands. You can scarcely walk half a mile in Vienna without hearing music. The gipsy bands which are often heard in Vienna play their national airs with a dash and fire that sets even the most sluggish pulse dancing. ”

“ The Viennese of the twelfth century sought, with pardonable vanity, to invest their town with the sacredness of antiquity. But we can scarcely allow their claims. On the contrary, we must deny all continuity between the Vindobona of the fourth and the Wien of the twelfth century. The Roman castrum disappeared, the Babenberg capital appeared, but between the two there is an unexplored gulf. Yet this incipient Vienna, although only the capital of a ducal family that had a hard fight at times for existence, holds an honorable position in the annals of German literature. ”

“ I shall never think again of Vienna without picturing that stranded girl, sipping at her reddish drink in the Amerikan-bar in the Kaisergarten. But her case is typical. The Viennese are not hospitable to strangers. They are an intimate, self-sufficient people.
Let us turn, however, from the little Gabrielle to a more fascinating and exquisite creature, to a happier and more buoyant denizen of Viennese night life, to a lady of more elegant attire.56 In short, behold Fräulein Bianca Weise. In her are the alkaloids of gaiety. She irradiates the joyfulness of the city. ”

“ These take place in Vienna at the time that Napoleon had reached Austria on his triumphal march and resided for the time in Schonbrun, the Hapsburg’s castle near Vienna. The Viennese people as a mass are characterized—these people so easily moved, so easily influenced, growing enthusiastic now for Napoleon, now in a hasty patriotic emotion for their own Emperor, principally wanting one thing: to see some exciting spectacle, to hear news, to speak over interesting happenings. ”

“ Every Frenchman in Vienna, no matter what his rank, had received an invitation, and not one failed. The Knights of the Golden Fleece and the ambassadors in full Court dress occupied the foremost rows of the choir. Behind them were all the notabilities, all the princely guests, and the authorities of the city of Vienna. A detachment of the regiments of the Guards and another of the Hungarian Nobiliary Guard were on duty round the catafalque, as at the funeral of emperors. Emperor Francis himself intended this as the highest expression of his personal sentiments. ”

“ Lastly, in Avignon, there's the Pope! greatness, power, magnificence, pomp, and splendor, dominating the earth, and without exaggeration, causing the breath of God to blow upon the banks of the Sorgue.
We learn that the brilliancy and animation of the court at Avignon outshine the glories of Rome, and in language that fairly glitters with its high-sounding, highly colored words. We hear of Petrarch and Laura, and the associations of Vaucluse. ”

“ So Avignon became a city of priests as Rome had been before her; and as France was the richest country in Europe and the Church regally wealthy, splendour, luxury, and constant religious spectacles rejoiced the city, and Bishop, Archbishop, and Abbot, brazenly neglecting the duties of their Sees, lived here and were seldom “in residence.” Every one had a secret ambition. ”

“ Here is a land that teems with the works of man’s imagination, met with continually in the massed fortresses{15} and embattled monasteries, the Roman playgrounds and places of amusement, the peaceful cloisters and places of worship.
Avignon, the Avenio of the Romans, was a Celtic city (the Sovereign of the Waters) before its conquest by the great empire-makers of the pre-Christian era; but its character was changed out of all recognition by the mediæval inhabitants of the town. ”