From the ramparts the Cardinals built small Palace of the Popes

the hands on the stock exchange and finance through quests which will become the first bridge hard on the Rhône river. No wonder that the relics of the berger have been preserved in a chapel on the bridge until it threatens ruin. Imagine all that a bridge could make to the development of a city.

At the time when the Popes moved there is still only four bridges on the Rhône, the other three being in Lyon, Vienna, and bridge-SaintEsprit (even one that had need of divine intervention). Some believe that the bridge was an important factor in the installation of the popes, other steps. Say that Avignon was ideally located more that Rome is at the centre of Europe's Christian, more about the France but the Spain, on lines of communication North-South (Rhone Valley) and East-West (the bridge).

In any case, when the papacy took hold in the interim, it was not camping. Come to the Palace of the Popes the biggest gothic Palace, provides here , it won the head to follow these walls fluted foothills fleeing to the sky and connected by arches of ecclesial look in their Summit to the top. A designer of BD would not invent something to represent this alliance to spiritual and temporal as the papacy. The Interior is huge, sometimes oppressive with its great walls, its small openings and its narrow stairs. In artistic terms, engineering personnel who have occupied it during any of the 19th century have not left much. Although... The restoration in the Saint-Martial chapel with its characters of Mateo Giovannetti floating on a lapis lazuli background appears to be promising (opening in a year); tiles hand painted fragments collected in some showcases are wonders, wall décor of the House of the Pope with his small animals on Oak and vine tendrils is dream even heavily restored and scenes of fishing and hunting in the next room (the Popes hunted to faces as the aristocracy of the time).

As well as missing drapes, these immensities of naked stone say the power and money. In the Tower of the Pope, under the House of the Pope, was the great camérier, his Prime Minister, and under the latter, same dimensions, low Treasury room where only accessed the Pope, the great camérier and the Treasurer. The bags of money and ceremonial dishes (196 kilograms of Clément VI) were protected in caches managed under the paving stone of the Hall.

In the side room, the large cash was the heart of the system of financing of the Church, described his recent Philippe Simonnot masterful book on "The popes, the Church and the money" (Editions Bayard). Here confluent large and small rivers of all born, cens, annates and other fees and taxes collected on behalf of the Pope by an army of collectors. On the place of the Pignotte, which are still distributed to poor "pignotta", buns in the shape of pigne. But the major part of this flow financed the train of life of the papal court. The enormity of the chimney overlooking the galleys intended by the lavish Clément VI (Pope in 1342 and 1352) say enough of major diplomatic banquet that gave here.

Avignon develops and this crowding of wealth does not go unnoticed. Between two episodes of the hundred years war, the major companies of mercenaries without employment attempt to ransom the popes, hurry to raise ramparts which still surround the historic centre (funded by new taxes on wine including).

From the ramparts, the Cardinals built small Palace of the Popes. In the beautiful library, under the rich ceilings in wood of the 14th century, behind the rows of books, there very well, painted even stone, the arms of cardinal Ceccano, built this Palace. The clock tower, which gives its name to place multiple terraces of coffee where converge Avignonnais and tourists at any time, is the former Tower of the Palace of the cardinal of Albano, swallowed by the city in the 19th century Hall. After the return to Rome of Gregory XI in 1376, this magnificence was extended by two schismatic popes, who continued to defy Rome from Avignon and then, until the revolution, by the legates of the Pope, Avignon becoming a sort of showcase "popish", especially during the wars of Religion.

That festival-goers who flock in the courtyard of the Palace from July 6 to applaud Joseph Nadj or Eric Lacascade are not afraid to commit a crime of against-Papacy. At the time, the Court was already open to the people, the Pontiff welcomed one of the right window when it is sitting on the bleachers. Yes, this one...